LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

l5 \<rs^ 

Chap.. Copyright No. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SOUL FOOD: 



BEING 



CHAPTERS ON THE INTERIOR LIFE. 



PASSAGES OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 




BY 



GEORG:^ D. WATSON, g-M 



.^r^'' 



Author of *' White Robes,'* ** Holiness Manual," ''Coals of 

P'ire, " ' ' Seven Overcomeths, ' * * ' Fruits of Canaan, ' ' 

* * Beauty for Ashes, ' * etc. 



M. W. KNAPP, 
RKVIVAI^IST OFFICE, CINCINNATI, O. 

1896. 



Copyrighted, 1896, by M. W. Knapp. 



-A^ 



SOUL FOOD LIBRARY. 

G. D. WATSON. ■— ^ 

.VJ^'"^ 

SOUIy FOOD (^New). Considered this author's best 
book. 50c. The following are among its topics : 
The Daily Cross ; A Deeper Death to Self ; Our Need of 
Humility ; Alone with God ; Lukewarmness ; The Fruit 
of Temptation ; Sorrow for Sin ; Loquacity ; Let God ; 
Simplicity ; Little Things ; Burdens of Prayer ; Fretting 
Over Ourselves ; Into the Deep ; Feeding our Faith ; 
Personal Love of Jesus ; Benefit of Deep Crucifixion ; _g 

Loaded Words ; The Dominant Soul Quality. ■ 

BEAUTY FOR ASHES ; or, Heart Wanderings : 

Their Cause and Cure. {New), 10c. j|S 

THE COMING OF JESUS TYPIFIED BY THE 
TRANSFIGURATION. {Unique and New.) lOc. 

SEVEN OVERCOMETHS. 25c. 

HOLINESS MANUAI,. 25c. 

WHITE ROBES. 50c. 

SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 50c. 

LIVE COALS. 50c. 

LOVE ABOUNDING. $1.00. 



These books are among the most 



luminous and readable in the whole 



realm of Holiness literature. Get 



them, read them, circulate them. 



CONTENTS : 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I — Souiv Food, ... 5 

II — A DKBPKR DKATH to SEI.F, . II 

III — LoADKD Words, ... 14 

IV — PKRSONAI. lyOVK OF JKSUS, . . 20 

V — lyUKKWARMNKSS, . . . 27 

VI — Fkkding OUR Faith, . 33 

VII — Tun Bknkfit OF Dkkp Crucifixion, 38 

VIII — Fretting Ovkr OurseIvVKS, . 45 

IX — I^ittle: Things, . . -49 

X — S1MP1.1CITY, • . • 53 

XI — lyOQUAClTY, . . . -57 

XII — Sorrow for Sin, . . 59 

XIII — In DkkpKR Dkgrkks, . . 62 

XIV — Benefits of Temptation, . 66 

XV — ^Thk DA11.Y Cross, . . - 70 

XVI — ^Thk Dominant Soui. Qu ai.it y, . 74 

XVII— A1.0NE With God, . . .80 

XVIII — Into the Deep, ... 84 

XIX — Concerning Annihii^ation, . 89 

XX — Concerning Soui. Si^eeping, . 92 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

XXI-— Giving the; Tknth, , . 98 

XXII— '^Lkt God," . . .102 

XXIII — Burdens of Prayer, . .106 

XXIV — Some Striking Incidents, . no 

XXV — Praying for an Enemy, . .114 

XXVI — Marvelous Answer to Prayer, 117 

XXVII— Th^ Divine Pull, . . .120 

XXVIII — Climax of Sorrow, . . 123 

XXIX — Our Need of Humility, . .125 

XXX — The Forms of Divine Life, . 129 

XXXI — The Spirit of Crucifixion, . 132 

XXXII — The Tender Lamb, . . 137 



I. 
SOUI. FOOD. 

THE soul has its appropriate food, and its mystical 
way of eating and digesting, just as really as the 
body. The soul feeds on truth and love, and the di- 
vine personalities. It feeds on truth through the in- 
tellect ; it feeds on love through the affections ; and it 
feeds on divine personalities through the choices and 
appropriations of the will. 

I. The conditions of soul-feeding. 

These are — first, life ; second, health ; third, zest. 
In regeneration, the Christ-life is imparted to the soul. 
This life, like all other kinds, is known by its char- 
acteristics. All life is invisible and inscrutable. We 
may search all living substances, but no microscope 
has ever yet found what life is. It is a fathomless 
mystery, whether in vegetable, animal, or spirit, and 
known only to God. 

But we know that Christ can and does impart His 
life to the penitent, believing soul ; and we know that 
this ChrivSt-life can feed and grow and manifest itself 
similiar to other kinds of life. It is not only needful 
to have this life, but to have it in a state of good soul- 
health. This implies the being cleansed from all moral 



6 SOUI. FOOD. 

disease, from all evil tempers and evil desires, from all 
self-will, and every principle of the carnal mind. Until 
the spiritual nature is thoroughly sanctified, its appe- 
tite is poor, its digestion is weak, and it craves a very 
light diet of religious food, made up largely of human 
intellectuality. For the soul to feed well, it not only 
needs life and health, but a lively zest of the faculties. 
This zest is acquired by practice, and by the quality of 
food the soul takes in. 

2. The manner of soul-feeding. 

In the mystical process of feeding the soul, percep- 
tion of truth corresponds to eating, by which truth is 
taken into the mind. The more rapidly and clearly we 
apprehend all kinds of spiritual truth, the more largely 
do w^e eat ; for just what taking food in the mouth and 
chewing it is to the body, the clear analysis and vivid 
apprehension of truth is to the soul; so that our 
perceptions are the mouth of the spirit. Faith is the 
digestive organ of the soul. It is by faith that the 
truth is dissolved and prepared to make living substance. 
Unless we have real, strong faith, the truth w^e 
perceive is not converted into living substance. A 
spiritual dyspeptic is one who has large perceptions of 
truth, but no adequate faith to digest it and turn it 
into experience. \ Just as the stomach of the body is 
often ruined by alcohol, tobacco, and other poisons 
and stimulants, until its digestive organs are ruined, so 
the stomach of the soul is often ruined by mental stim- 



SOUI. FOOD. 7 

ulants, such as novels, philosophy, and false doctrines, 
until the digestive power of faith is well-nigh de- 
stroyed. 

Lgye is the blood of the spiritual life. When the 
food in the stomach has been digested, it resembles 
milk ; then it is conveyed into the lungs, where it is 
cooked by the oxygen of the air, and becomes beauti- 
ful red blood ; it is then poured into the heart, and the 
heart, like a steam-pump, throws it all over the body, 
to build up the wasted organs. 

This same process is carried on in the soul. Truth 
is perceived by the intellect, digested by the faith, and 
through the constant in-breathing of the divine Spirit 
this digested truth is turned into love, which consti- 
tutes the very life and substance of the spiritual man. 
Every atom of the body is made out of blood. In like 
manner the very body of the true Christian life is 
made out of love. 

There is one more step in this analogy, and that is 
as to what is termed the stored-up substance of the 
body. The human body will subsist for some weeks 
on its stored-up substance, which is mysteriously con- 
cealed in the flesh. When the body goes without 
food, the heart and brain, which are vital centers, will 
consume the reserved forces of the body and draw the 
substance out of the flesh until the body becomes a 
skeleton. Many persons have wondered where the 
flesh went when people have no food. The answer is. 



8 SOUI. FOOD. 

the flesh is gradually turned back into blood again, and 
flows back to the heart and brain. 

Memory is that power in the soul which corresponds 
to this stored-up substance. Thence, when a good, 
healthy soul cannot attend good, religious meetings, 
or hear spiritual instruction, or have deep, spiritual 
reading, it has to live by memory on the stored-up 
nourishment which it has previously received. 

You may ask, ** Does not such a soul still have ac- 
cess to God in prayer ? ' ' I answer. Yes. Prayer is 
the very breath of the spiritual life, and breath is more 
essential to life than anything else ; but as the body 
lives on three things — air, water, and food — so the soul 
lives on three things — namely, prayer, the Holy Spirit, 
and the periodical feeding on freshly-apprehended 
spiritual truth. And though the body can live a good 
while on air and water, yet, if denied food, it will die. 
In like manner the soul of the believer may live on 
prayer and the Holy Spirit, but if it is cut off from 
the understanding of appropriate spiritual truth, it 
will pine, and the life be greatly weakened. For this 
reason, the best of Christian people need the help of 
good, religious meetings, of Bible instruction, and of 
spiritual reading. 

3. It is a law of all life to lay hold on foreign sub- 
stances and turn them into itself. It is enough to 
make us stand in awe to watch the strange power 
which the life of even a little plant has. The roots of 



SOUI. FOOD. 9 

every kind of plant or tree will seize upon the same 
gases and juices in the earth and transmute them into 
their several lives. The oak turns everything into 
oak, and out of the same substances the deadly night- 
shade turns everything into nightshade. The lamb 
converts the grass into lamb, and from the identical 
same substances the wild ass builds up his life. The 
omnipotent mechanism that intervenes between the 
one result and the other is simply a difference in the 
kind of life. This law holds true in the spiritual life. 
The soul in which Satan reigns turns everything it 
eats into selfishness, and the soul which has been 
washed in Jesus' blood and filled with the Christ-life 
will convert all that it eats into the Christ-life. The 
same trials, bereavements, losses, and sorrows which 
make one kind of life grow in fretting or melancholy, 
or bitter and open rebellion, will make another kind of 
life grow in meekness and patient perseverance, and an 
inexpressible charity and sweetness of" spirit. Every- 
thing depends on whether the self-life or the Christ- 
life has possession of us. There is a point in the 
Christian life where the whole being is so crucified and 
pervaded by the Holy Spirit, in spirit, soul, and body, 
that everything it comes in contact with, and every ex- 
perience of joy and sorrow, and every treatment it re- 
ceives from men or devils, becomes a means of grace, 
and is turned into a mystical nourishment. There is 
such a thing as feeding on odors and outward bathings 



lO SOUL FOOD. 

of milk and oil. It has been found that hungry per- 
sons get nourished by the smell of cooked food. Some 
winters ago the poor, hungry tramps in Chicago used 
to hang around the restaurants in such crowds that the 
police drove them away. Many of them testified that 
they desired to smell the odor of the cooked food, as it 
seemed to appease their hunger. 

There is something analogous to this in the spirit- 
ual life. To a hungry soul there is an indescribable fla- 
vor and a mystical nourishment in good, spiritual sing- 
ing, in being in the presence of good people, and even 
in looking in the face of a Spirit-filled person. A 
Christ- possessed soul has a mysterious, heavenly at- 
mosphere around it, and this very atmosphere is elec- 
trified with a heavenly vigor. 

The inner spirit of a perfect believer gets a nourish- 
ment out of the odors of Paradise ; out of the majestic 
beauties of nature ; out of the tender memories of the 
past ; out of the flights of pure poetry ; out of dreams 
and bright natural visions ; out of storms and tempests, 
as sea-birds feed on the foam which the tempest chums 
out from the sea ; out of the affinities of friendship ; and 
even out of the antagonism of foes. 

Oh, blessed be God for that all-devouring vortex of 
love which grinds grist from life or death, from na- 
ture, grace, or glory, into that fine flour out of which 
angels' food is cooked ! A soul in such a state will not 
onh^ find food for itself out of every opening flower of 



A DEEPER DEATH TO SEI.F. II 

grace and providence, but it will be a food-bearer to 
other hungry souls. 



II. 
A DEEPER DEATH TO SELF. 

THERE is not only a death to sin, but in a great 
many things there is a deeper death to self — a 
crucifixion in detail, and in the minutia of life — after 
the soul has been sanctified. This deeper crucifixion 
to self is the unfolding and application of all the prin- 
ciples of self-renunciation which the soul agreed to in 
its full consecration. Job was a perfect man, and dead 
• to all sin ; but in his great sufferings, he died to his 
own religious life ; died to his domestic affections ; died 
to his theology ; all his views of God's providence ; he 
died to a great many things which in themselves were 
not sin, but which hindered his largest union with God. 
Peter, after being sanctified and filled with the Spirit, 
needed a special vision from heaven to kill him to his 
traditional theology and Jewish high churchism. The 
very largest degrees of self-renunciation, crucifixion, 
and abandonment to God, take place after the work of 
heart-purity. There are a multitude of things which 
are not sinful ; nevertheless, our attachment to them 
prevents our greatest fulness of the Holy Spirit and 
our amplest co-operation with God. Infinite wisdom 
takes us in hand, and arranges to lead us through deep, 



12 SOUI. FOOD. 

interior crucifixion to our fine arts, our lofty reason, 
our brightest hopes, our cherished affections, our re- 
ligious views, our dearest friendship, our pious zeal, 
our spiritual impetuosity, our narrow culture, our 
creeds and churchism, our success, our religious expe- 
riences, our spiritual comforts ; the crucifixion goes on 
till we are dead and detached from all creatures, all 
saints, all thoughts, all hopes, all plans, all tender heart- 
yearnings, all preferences ; dead to all troubles, all sor- 
rows, all disappointments ; equally dead to all praise or 
blame, success or failure, comforts or annoyances ; dead 
to all climates and nationalities ; dead to all desire but 
for Himself. There are innumerable degrees of interior 
crucifixion on these various lines. Perhaps not one 
sanctified person in ten thousand ever reaches that de- 
gree of death to self that Paul and Madame Guy on, and 
similar saints, have reached. 

In contradistinction from heart-cleansing, this finer 
crucifixion of self is gradual ; it extends through 
months or 3^eais : the interior spirit is mortified over 
and over on the same points, till it reaches a state of 
divine indifference to it. A great host of believers 
have obtained heart-purity, and yet, for a long time, 
have gone through all sorts of ' * dying daily ' ' to self, 
before they found that calm, fixed union with the Holy 
Ghost which is the deep longing of the child of God. 
Again, in contradistinction from heart-cleansing, which 
is by faith, this deeper death to self is by suffering. 



A DKKPER DEATH TO SKI.F. 1 3 

This is abundantly taught in Scripture, and confirmed 
by the furnace experience of thousands. Joseph was 
a sanctified man before being cast into prison ; but 
there the iron entered into his soul (see Ps. 105, 18 
margin), and by suffering he reached the highest death 
of self. There are literally scores of Scripture passages, 
like Ps. 71: 19-21, teaching that the upper ranges in 
the sanctified state are wrought out through suffering. 
Perhaps the most remarkable position of the Word on 
this subject is in Romans, fifth chapter ; the first verse 
teaches justification by faith, the second verse teaches 
full salvation by faith, and verses three to five teach a 
deeper death and fuller Holy Ghost life by tribulation. 
When the soul undergoes this deeper death of vSelf , it 
enters into a great wideness of spiritual comprehension 
and love ; a state of almost uninterrupted prayer ; of 
boundless charity for all people ; of unutterable ten- 
derness and broadness of sympathy ; of deep, quiet 
thoughtfulness ; of extreme simplicity of life and 
manners ; and of deep visions into God and the com- 
ing ages. In this state of utter death to self, suffering, 
sorrows, pains, and mortifications of all kind are looked 
upon with a calm, sweet indifference. Such a soul 
looks back over its heart-breaking toils, its scalding 
tears, its mysterious tribulations, with gentle subdued- 
ness, without regret, for it now sees God in every step 
of the way. Into such a soul the Holy Spirit pours 
the ocean currents of His own life ; its great work 



14 SOUI. FOOD. 

henceforth is to watch the monitions and movements 
of the Spirit within it, and yield prompt, loving, un- 
questioning co-operation with Him. Such a soul has 
at last, in deed and in truth, reached the place where 
there is '' none of self and all of Christ." 



III. 
LOADED WORDS. 



THERE is an indescribable quality about words, 
even when they are printed, but more so when 
they are spoken. Words are chariots in which the 
quality of the heart and mind ride forth to other souls. 
The dominant heart- quality of a person will possess 
and accompany his words with absolute precision. If 
the spirit of a man is superficial, or narrow, or time- 
serving, or selfish, or trifling, these qualities will per- 
vade his words, in spite of all the seriousness or sanc- 
tity he may try to put into them, whether they are 
written or spoken. , If the heart is large and filled, 
with the broad, tender love of Jesus, and compassion 
for others, then the simplest expressions, which may 
seem common-place, will be freighted with these qual- 
ities. All words are loaded with the quality of the 
soul out of which they proceed. It is eternally impos- 
sible for God to utter one word that is not loaded with 
divinity ; and, on the other hand, it is impossible for 
the devil to utter one word which does not, in some 



LOADKD WORDS. 1 5 

way, contain a lie. Words are like eyes. Some eyes 
are inquisitive ; others are pleading ; others are brave ; 
others are searching ; others are mild and tender ; and 
still others are low and mean. There is an invisible 
stream of soul-quality that flows out from people's 
eyes, and there is no way in the world to change the 
quality of that stream except by changing the eye, 
and the only way to change the eye is to change the 
immortal spirit that looks out through the eye. 

This same thing is true of words. Our words are 
the eye-balls of the heart, in which others see the 
quality of our minds. The apostle speaks of ' ' our 
words being seasoned with salt ; ' ' and Jesus tells us 
that we must " have salt in ourselves." In one sense, 
salt is sweeter than sugar, and far more essential to the 
chemistry of our blood than sugar is. Hence, salt is 
a type of the indwelling Christ in us ; and it is when 
we are salted through and through with the blessed 
Holy Ghost that our words will be seasoned with the 
real Christ-life. Our words cannot be loaded with the 
the Holy Spirit after they leave pur lips. If God is in 
them, they must proceed out of a Holy Spirit element 
in us. The drops of blood, or the tears, that you may 
shed, all contain salt ; but that salt is in the stomach 
and the heart before it is in the blood-drops or the 
tear-drops. In like manner, if our words have a sa- 
vor of life and power in them, they must get that 
quality from the inner depths of our spirit before they 



1 6 SOUL FOOD. 

drop from our lips or our pens. Jesus teaches that our 
words reveal our heart-character, and says : "By thy 
j words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned." If we speak or write in the 
Holy Spirit, our words will be loaded with light. 
There will be a transparency and straightforward sim- 
plicity in them like unto clear glass. They will not 
be spoken for ostentation, or for sound, or in guile, 
or with double meaning. All such words are opaque. 
Many a sermon is so preached, and many a relig- 
ious book so written, that instead of revealing the truth 
to the simplest understanding, it obscures it. The only 
use of words is to make the thought easily and per- 
fectly intelligible, and when the Holy Spirit inspires 
them, they are like balls of clear glass, in which the 
very core of the thought can be seen and compre- 
hended. Another peculiarity about words loaded with 
the Spirit is an inexpressible warmth and magnetism in 
them. They seem to quiver with a heavenly electric- 
ity ; they vitalize the mind ; they penetrate the un- 
derstanding ; there is a love-quality in them, like the 
pungent, penetrating heat of sweet spices and aro- 
matic oils. A piece of cedar-wood or sandal-wood will 
give forth a sweet, pungent odor for hundreds of 
years ; and so there is a hot, burning flavor in the words 
which have come from minds aflame with divine love. 
It often happens that persons devoid of the interior 
flame of the Holy Ghost try to put a pathos or an 



i,oade:d words. 17 

unction into their prayers or sermons or conversation ; 
but in spite of all their efforts, their words are insipid, 
milk and water, chilly and powerless, because they 
have not come from an interior furnace. It is only a 
painted fire, which dazzles the eye and freezes the 
hearer. The Holy Spirit alone can put into our words 
that burning, warming sensation which kindles other 
souls into fervor. Only notice, when some person speaks 
in a religious meeting under the melting, burning love 
of Jesus, how their words strike the mind like a warm 
south wind in early spring ; notice how the congrega- 
tion listen to catch every word ; how the fiery stream 
of speech will evoke a pleasent smile, or a flowing 
tear, or awaken conviction, or a sense of joy ; every 
mind in the congregation which loves the truth will 
be wide awake ; there is a warmth in the expression 
of the people's eyes, and if you could see into their 
intellects, it would resemble a flower-garden blossoming 
into bright and glowing thoughts, and their affections 
melted into sweetness. Those burning words are being 
shot like red-hot bullets from a divine magazine of a 
flre-baptized heart. In comparison with such words, 
all human eloquence is like cold moonbeams on a 
frozen sea. 

Another characteristic of Holy Ghost loaded words 
is a divine fitness in them as to time and place and 
matter. God often arranges to have His Spirit-led 
children speak words in such a juncture of circum- 



1 8 SOUIv FOOD. 

stances, or at such times, and in such a tone of voice, 
as the speaker did not premeditate, which have accom- 
plished vast and everlasting results. People will often 
say that you spoke a certain word to me years ago, 
under such and such circumstances, which made a 
great change in my life. Here is a young lady physi- 
cian who has packed her trunk to leave a certain camp- 
meeting. She is invited to lead a young people's 
meeting. An evangelist standing by, in an unpremedita- 
ted way, simply says : ' ^ Sister, the lyord wants you here ; 
go and pack your trunk, and lead that meeting." The 
words are loaded ; they pierce the heart. The young 
lady leads the meeting, and from that time on becomes 
a holiness evangelist. 

A certain man is holding a meeting in North Geor- 
gia. A brother steps up and says : ' ' I met you ten 
years ago in AugUvSta, when I was seeking sanctifica- 
tion, and walking in the street, I asked you several 
questions. You simpl}^ answered me : ' Brother, just 
leave yourself in the hands of Jesus, and He will an- 
swer all your questions.' Your words were loaded, 
and in a few moments I was in spiritual lib- 
erty." 

There are millions of instances where words have been 
spoken, under the guidance of the Spirit, just in the 
nick of time to accomplish great results. 

Another quality about loaded words is that of dura- 
bility ; they have in them the element of immortality. 



I^OADKD WORDS. 1 9 

Common-place words, spoken out of the mere creature, 
glide awa}' from us by the million ; but certain words, 
appropriate to our needs and charged with the Spirit, . 
bury themselves in our memories, and remain fresh 
with us through life. 

Many years ago, I met an old negro, about a hun- 
dred years old. In his conversation, he said : * ' Man 
tell something you forgit ; God tell you something 
you no forgit." I have often thought of that expres- 
sion. If we want our prayers, or sermons, or testi- 
monies, or written words, to abide in everlasting fruit- 
fulness, they must be in the order of Divine will and 
under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Some persons 
try of set purpose to speak wise and appropriate and 
powerful words. But all such is a failure. You can't 
speak loaded words by trying to, or for the occasion ; 
it is only by having the very fountains of our being so 
melted and filled and united with the Holy Spirit that, 
without any premeditation or set purpose, every stray 
shot and our ordinary conversation will be just as full 
of holy gravity and fiery truth as our prayers and ser- 
mons. The power must be generic, and continually 
flowing through us from the indwelling Christ. A 
trifling preacher during the week cannot speak fiery 
and weighty words on Sunday. Let us in secret 
prayer bathe ourselves so long in the bright and warm 
presence of Jesus that when we go forth we shall un- 
consciously carry in our manners and words that in- 



20 SOUI. FOOD. 

imitable quality of life and durability which can come 
alone from the Eternal One. 

If in the past our words have been lacking in the 
Divine aroma of grace, let us go to the fountain and, 
by persevering prayer, get in such abiding relation with 
the real source of all holiness as to make our very 
words conductors of heavenly electricity. Our infinite, 
loving God will gladly utilize any little humble one on 
this earth as a channel of holy fire, if they will utterly 
yield themselves up to His will and the current of the 
Holy Spirit. 



IV. 

PERSONAI, I^OVK OF JESUS. 

WE Imve a revelation of God's personal feelings 
in the very nature of the first great command- 
ment, that we are to love Him with all our heart. 

The complaint that Jesus had against the Church 
at Ephesus was their lack of fervent, personal love for 
Him ; they had ' ' works' ' and ' ' labor ' ' and ' ' patience, ' ' 
and great zeal in searching out heretics, and in bearing 
persecution and the scorn of their neighbors, and had 
not fainted under hardships. 

If such a list of graces were now found in one per- 
son, he would be esteemed a great saint ; and yet the 
infinite Searcher of hearts saw the lack of something 
for which all these massive virtues could not atone ; 



PERSON AI. I.OVE OF JESUS. 21 

and that was a warm, deep, incessant, cleaving, tender 
passion of soul for the person of the Lord Jesus. 

Very few Christians reach such an intimacy with 
our dear I^ord as to receive and appreciate His individ- 
ual feelings. Jesus is an infinite lover, and nothing will 
satisfy Him but a pure, sacred, passionate, and per- 
sonal love. He loves to be loved. He loves those most 
who have the most personal affection for Him. There 
are so many things that are eminently religious, 
and brave, and enterprising, and reformatory, which 
displa}^ great zeal and orthodoxy, but which do not 
satisfy the longings of our Savior's heart. 

There are so few Christians that are positively af- 
fectionate with Jesus. Personal love of Jesus is 
marked by several characteristics : 

I. It is a unique and undefinable love for His person 
as the God-man. When we are filled with the Spirit, 
there will be unfolded in our minds a fixed apprehen- 
sion of each person in the Godhead ; and there will 
be individual love for each person in the Godhead, and 
a sweet, peculiar adoration and affection and wor- 
ship for the Father and for Christ, and for the Holy 
Sp|irit. And there is something in our love for each 
of the Divine persons which is peculiar to their per- 
sonality. In such a state, our love for Jesus is the 
blending of love for the eternal Son and the sacred hu- 
manit}^ so this affection is composed of the most ar- 
dent attachments which a creature can have for 



22 SOUL FOOD. 

his God, and the strongest attachment which one crea- 
ture can have for another. 

The human soul and sacred body of Jesus are the 
highest of all things in the creation of God. His 
suffering and death render Him the most precious 
creature in the universe, both to Father and to us ; and 
when this is joined with the eternal Logos, who was 
our Creator, it puts Him in such relation to us that we 
can love Him with a kind of love as we cannot have 
toward another person, either divine or human. It is 
this compound love, this blending of affections, like 
the composition of the sweet spikenard, which Jesus 
wants us to pour forth on Him. 

We can love Jesus with more different kinds of af- 
fection than any other person in the universe. Look 
at the number of tender relationships that He sustains 
toward a soul that is perfectl}^ wedded to Him by the 
Holy Spirit. As our Creator, we adore Him ; as our 
Redeemer, we boundlessly trust Him ; as our King, 
we obey Him ; as our Judge, we fear Him ; as 
our Master, we submit to Him ; as our Savior, we 
praise Him ; as a little Infant, we feel a fatherly and 
motherly love toward Him ; as a Brother, we feel a 
brotherly and sisterly love for Him ; as our spiritual 
Bridegroom, our hearts are passionatel}^ devoted to 
Him. 

Ever}' relation that He sustains to us calls forth 
a new form of love. There is no kind of affection 



PERSON AI. I.OVE OF JKSUS. 23 

possible to the human soul which Jesus should not re- 
ceive. See in how many ways Eve was related to 
Adam ; being builded out of his rib, she was his own 
daughter, and at the same time his own sister, and at 
the same time his bride ; and he being the lord of the 
human family, she was his servant, and all these rela- 
tions entered into her affections for him. 

Jesus is to us, in a similar way, all that Adam was 
to Eve, with a great deal more besides. Now do we 
love our precious Lord in all these relationships ! 
Is our love for Him an ever- flowing stream, which is 
made up from all these several rivulets? There is no 
one in the universe, to a divinely-illuminated mind, so 
lovable as our blessed, Divine Jesus. 

II. Personal love for Jesus has in it the extremes 
of the most sacred fear and the most child-like famil- 
iarity. Some people think that those who have much 
sacred fear can not have much love ; and, on the other 
hand, that those who have a fond familiarity of love 
can not have a reverential fear ; but such people are 
greatly mistaken. Fear and love are the two equal 
wings to this soaring devotion. Those who have an 
awe which in the least hinders their love, have a 
slave's awe, and not that of a child. There is nothing 
more beautiful in the interior life than that sacred awe, 
that sweet and vSacred dread, which the soul feels in the 
presence of its Lord. When we gaze at His beautiful 
and blazing majesty, when our whole soul feels a gentle 



24 SOUL FOOD. 

trembling before Him, there is something in the very 
holy dread that draws us to a deeper and more tender 
love. 

And, on the other hand, there is a spotless familiar- 
ity which the soul can take with Jesus — a boldness and 
liberty of thought and speech — which only serves to 
make our worship more true, so that, in reality, sacred 
fear and familiar love act and react on each other. 

III. Personal love of Jesus is indicated by an ex- 
treme sensitiveness for His honor. The soul feels an 
insult at every dishonor that is shown to its Divine 
Husband. When Jesus is wounded, His name lightly 
used. His majesty disregarded, His precious blood ig- 
nored — when He is treated irreverently, or when He is 
in any way dishonored as to His person or merits or 
claims — this hot personal love will feel a delicate, divine 
indignation. 

The heart is as sensitive to the preciousness and 
honor of Christ as the apple of the.e^^e. The truly 
wedded soul is very touchy as to the glory of its hus- 
band. And, on the other hand, this kind of love is al- 
ways elated and happy at every advancement of Christ's 
glory. It loves to see Him extended ; it glories in the 
spread of His glory. 

IV. This kind of love has an incessant yearning 
for all the dispositions manifested in the life of Jesus. 
This personal love of Jesus has large, bright eyes, and 
from the New Testament records it can see marvelous 



PKRSONAIv I.OVK OF JKSUS. 25 

things in the Christ-life. It has vast and penetrating 
visions into the depths of His lowliness, the vastness of 
His charity, the tenderness of His Spirit, the perpet- 
ual self-sacrifice of His will, the absolute courage of 
His obedience, the everlastingness of His kindness. It 
sees His whole inner life, like a magnificent city, all lit 
up with unspeakable attributes, and all bespangled 
with majesties and virtues and graces and sweetnesses, 
that charm and bewilder the soul, and makes it leap 
with intensest desire to possess everything which it sees 
in its lovely I^ord. No splendor in creation can com- 
pare with the dazzling charms which an ardently lov- 
ing soul peceives in Jesus. It cries out, with St. Paul, 
' ' Oh, the depth of the riches ! " It is this vision 
which makes the soul pine and pray, and weep loving 
tears, and dream over and over of the ineffable trans- 
formation of being made just like its heavenly Bride- 
groom. 

V. This form of love is strongly attached to the 
possessions of Christ. _ There is a peculiar attachment 
which alwa3^s goes with the possession of a thing. It 
is the affection of ownership. As soon as anything 
becomes our propert}^, we have a peculiar attachment 
which never could exist previous to ownership. This 
is why Jesus said, " Where 3^our possessions are, there 
will your heart be." He does not say the possessions 
will go where the heart is, but the heart will go where 
the possessions are. Hence the soul in perfect, loving 



26 SOUI. FOOD. 

union with Jesus will find itself taking hold of all His 
personal kingdom and all His property, as a young 
queen finds the affections of her heart stretching out 
to all the subjects and enterprises of her king's do- 
minion. 

VI. I should not omit to say that this personal love 
for Jesus has in it a fond, caressing spirit for Him. It 
twines its thoughts around Him. It folds Him round 
and round with the delicate embraces of the Spirit. It 
often finds itself, like John, leaning on His breast ; or, 
like Mary, sitting at His feet ; or, like Magdalene, 
bathing His feet with tears ; and whatever posture the 
body may be in, the soul is often on its face before Him 
in perfect, penitential tenderness. 

VII. The love of Jesus would not be complete if it 
did not include a longing for His personal appearing, 
and to see Him come in the glory of His kingdom. 
The Holy Spirit loves Jesus with an infinite love, and 
He alone can flood our being with fervent love for 
Christ ; and the Holy Ghost has told us that w^e are to 
' ' love Christ's appearing. ' ' St. Paul speaks of a crown 
of righteousness for all those who love our I^ord's ap- 
pearing. Any love for Jesus which does not include an 
intense desire to see and be with Him is below the 
standard of affection which He requires of us. They 
please Him mOvSt who love Him personally and ardently 
up to their capacity. 



IvUKEWARMNESS. 27 

V. 

LUKEWARMNESS. 

THE very thought of lukewarmness implies that 
the soul has previously been in a good, hot state 
of grace. Persons who have never known a good de- 
gree of fervor, either in a justified or sanctified state, 
will never have the malady of lukewarmness. It is 
like pestilential insects, which attack thrifty, living 
vegetables, and not dry, dead sticks. We never think 
of a dry, rainless desert as suffering from a drouth. 
The very thought of suffering from drouth implies that 
the ground has previousl}^ been well watered. 

It often happens that those who have been the most 
richly blessed with divine grace, and who have been 
lifted into fervent love, will imperceptibly decline into 
lukewarmness. Very few Christians on earth entirely 
escape this miserable tepidity altogether. One of the 
worst features about lukewarmness is that it steals on 
the soul in such quiet, respectable ways. If the hor- 
rible thing had horns and hoofs, and a smack of crim- 
inality in it, it would alarm the soul ; but, as a rule, 
lukewarmness of spirit is so decent and well-behaved, 
that it chloroforms its victim and kills him without a 
scream of terror. This is what makes it so awfully 
fatal. While open sin slays its hundreds, nice, respect- 
able lukewarmness slays its tens of thousands. 

Could we get a vision of a soul that has been all 



28 SOUIv FOOD. 

aglow with sanctifying grace, as it was beginning to 
get lukewarm, we would see a heart seemingly spotless 
and empty, with the heavenly dove and the good angels 
just on the outside, but with their faces turned away 
from it, as if about to leave ; and, on the other hand, 
we would see unclean beasts and birds on the outside 
of the heart, but with their faces turned toward it, as 
if about to enter. We would see the eyes half closed, 
as if about taking a nap, and a dull, expressionless 
mouth, reminding us of a winter fireplace where the 
fire burns low. Oh, could the soul but see the awful- 
ness of such a condition ! 

lyukewarmness is indicated by a negligence in acts of 
piet}', and a carelessness in fixed habits of devotion ; 
such as daily reading God's Word, regular seasons of 
prayer, constant guarding of our conversation, seasons, 
of fasting, and habits of divine and heavenly medita- 
tion. There is not only a carelessness in the perform- 
ing of these acts, but a dullness of spirit, a slovenness 
of mind, in the doing of them. As nearly all tight- 
rope walkers and lion-tamers sooner or later get killed 
in their foolish game by a little carelessness, so many 
Christians fall from elevated grace, and are devoured 
by lions, through a thoughtless and careless spirit in 
Christian duty. 

Another S3anptom of lukewarmness is a trusting to 
the magic of former grace. The vSoul has experienced, 
by an instantaneous regeneration, or an instantaneous 



I^UKKWARMNKSS. 29 

sanctification, such floods of light and love as seem to 
sweep it out on an irresistible tide, and everything re- 
ligious seems vSO easy, that everything works like a 
charm. But this very flood- tide of holy ease becomes 
a snare to the soul. It leans upon these instantaneous 
blessings to work by a sort of magic, and to take the 
place of patient, thoughtful perseverance. There are 
hundreds who are lazily expecting the mere blessing 
of sanctification to take them through, and do not per- 
ceive that the chilling past is settling down in the edges 
of their souls. It is as if a captain of a fine ship, 
after getting her out to sea, wdth the sails all set, and 
fairly in the wind, should lash the helm, and tell the 
crew they might take a holiday, expecting the wind 
and the ship, the chart and the compass, to do the bal- 
ance. There are more souls doing this thing than we 
dream of. 

Another element in lukewarmness is a sort of indefi- 
nite contentment wdth the present level of the spirit- 
ual life. There is a quiet, unexpressed decision of the 
mind that the soul is getting on very well, and that it 
will settle dow^n into its present thought and feelings. 
Most Christians have quietly decided to live the re- 
mainder of their days just about like they are now 
doing. They expect no further great epochs in their 
experience. 

A great many holiness people are so afraid of what 
resembles a third blessing that they expect no great 



30 SOUIv FOOD. 

widening deluges of the Spirit, but nestle down in the 
thought that if the}^ can only keep a clean heart, they 
will never bother themselves about the ocean-depths of 
boundless, melting, fiery love. Such souls are already 
on the decline, and do not know it. Their spiritual life re- 
sembles a quiet, lazy , drowsy summer Sunday afternoon. 
They feel the Saturday night's work has been well 
done up ; the Sabbath morn religion has been nicely 
attended to ; and they can't bear the thought of the 
duties of Monday morning, and so spend the time nap- 
ing. Even holiness preachers settle down into this 
Sunday afternoon condition, with just enough spirit- 
ual fervor to brush the summer flies away. 

It is amazing how few Christians are seriously de- 
termined to get beyond their present experience ; and 
of course they do not get be3^ond. And this luke- 
warmness manifests itself by a disposition to criticise 
as heretics those who do push beyond. The legalist 
suspicions the man as being erratic who knows his sins 
are forgiven. The merely converted man looks upon 
the fully sanctified with a good deal of suspicion, 
and even many who are sanctified regard any greater 
enlargements in the Holy Ghost life as bordering on 
heresy. And so it goes on. Will there ever be any 
end to the narrowness and the littleness of our minds 
and faith? 

Another element in lukewarmness is the secret fact 
in the mind that the soul has done so much for God, 



i.ukkwarmne:ss. 31 

has fought so many battles, endured so many afflic- 
tions, had so many uplifts in grace, that it can put 
itself on the retired list of the army and draw full pay. 
This is a very subtle disposition, and the soul hardly 
dares to whisper it to itself, for the conscience feels that 
its meanness is like the gunpowder plot, which must 
^uot be breathed : and yet, where is the saint who has 
known much of God, into whose mind this low, sneak- 
ing thought has not crept ? God only knows how many 
of His children, once hot with holy love, are living, 
like broken-down aristocracy, on the faded splendors of 
the past. Their experiences resemble faded photo- 
graphs, or the withered flowers that were used at last 
week's funeral. 

Another feature in lukewarmness is the hidden 
compliment which the soul takes to itself, that glowing 
fervor is only a juvenile thing which it has outgrown, 
and that it is now ''serving God on principle." All 
states of toning down in spiritual life are accompanied 
by some sort of self-complacency. When the soul be- 
gins to think less of God, and of the precious blood, 
and of the Holy Ghost, it begins to think more of 
itself. 

This thought of serving God on cold principle in- 
dicates a sad state : it may not be ruinous to one's life, 
but it is ruinous to deep spirituality. One of the worst 
things about it is its respectability. It keeps in the 
beaten path of decent religion ; no one can lay any 



32 SOUL FOOD. 

charge against it ; it can pass in and out around any 
circle of Christians ; it does nothing to call down se- 
vere rebukes ; it is an old, sober, well-behaved thing, 
keeping on good terms with everybody and everything 
in general. If only something terrific would happen 
to it ; if it could be hurled to the dust in humiliation 
and mortification ; if it could only be set weepmg and 
wailing, it would be an infinite advantage to it. But 
such a miserable state of soul is so pleasing to the devil 
that he will not even tempt it to commit any great sin, 
lest it should be shocked into renewed repentance and 
fer\^or of grace. The devil likes to bury a hot relig- 
ious experience in a smooth shroud of cold virtue. 

There is one more symptom of lukewarmness, and 
that is a dull sense of inward breaking with God. 
The heart feels that something is not just right. The 
orthodoxy is all right ; the outward life may be cor- 
rect ; the verbal testimony still kept up ; and all Chris- 
tian duties in a general way looked after ; but the ani- 
mating spirit is weakened. There is no conscious 
touch from God ; no seUvSe of fulness dilating the 
heart ; no sweet vision of God's attributes ; no bright, 
far-away fields open to it in secret prayer ; no lowly 
feeling of kissing the Savior's feet ; no rapt adoration of 
His majesty ; no sweet hymns vibrating in the mind 
during the sleep ; no melting, yearning love for the 
saving of souls ; no spells of divine laughter rippling 
through the mind ; no bullet-like piercing of the words 



FKKDING OUR FAITH. 33 

# 

of the Scripture ; no whispering of the Holy Ghost as 
of old ; no conscious grasp on the throne through 
prayer. 

The flash has left the eye ; the smile from the lip ; 
the divine throb from the heart ; the promptness has 
left the will ; the gentleness has left the voice ; the third 
heavens, w^ith its retinue, have gone ofF somewhere. 
Some unpleasant, undefinable, unexplorable something 
has settled on the inner spirit ; it has ceased to feel to- 
ward Jesus as a real lover ; it is getting offensive to the 
Holy Spirit ; and unless something can be done to re- 
kindle its fading fires, it will nauseate the Infinite 
heart, and Christ will spew it out of His mouth. This 
is an awful metaphor, and indicates the awfulness of 
lukewarmness. 



VI. 
FEEDING OUR FAITH. 

INASMUCH as faith is the condition of all the spirits 
ual life, of the entrance into that life, and the steps 
to progress in that life, it behooves us to give it all the 
nourishment possible. Faith can be strengthened, and 
fed, and thus will grow ; but the growth of faith is 
often very opposite to our notions concerning it. We 
often suppose that faith is made strong by receiving 
great encouragement, by having quick and abundant 
answers to prayer, by high states of joy, by lofty vis- 

3 



^4 SOUIv FOOD. 

ions of divine things ; but in reality these things do 
not strengthen our faith as much as we fancy. Our 
faith is to be nourished on the promises of God. Those 
promises are contained in His written Word. They 
may be also promises communicated to the soul by the 
Holy Spirit, or through other souls who are in close 
fellowship with God, and who may speak to us great 
promises of what God has told them concerning us. 
When God first called Abraham, He inundated his soul 
with a sea of promises ; He spoke to him from the 
starry heavens, and from the soil of Canaan on which 
he walked, and by the visits of angels, and by the 
Holy Ghost in the deep of his nature. Abraham saw 
great fields of light — great possibilities of things for 
himself and his posterity. His soul drank in these 
promises, until his faith became wide and powerful, even 
before any of them were fulfilled. God deals with souls 
in a similar way ; yet when He calls any one to great 
degrees of perfection or of usefulness. He begins by 
opening up to them the promises of His Word, and the 
possibilities which they may achieve, even before there 
are any outward^ symptoms of their fulfillment. The 
heart that anchors itself in the promises of God, 
until those promises become as real as God himself, will 
have strong faith. 

Another nourishment to faith is the removing from 
the soul of natural and human props. Naturally we 
lean on a great many things in nature, and society, and 



FEEDING OUR FAITH. 35 

the Church, and friends, more than we are aware of. We 
think we depend axi God alone, and never dream of 
how much we depend on other things, until they are 
taken from us, and if they were not removed, we 
should go on, self- deceived, thinking that we relied on 
God for all things. But God designs to concentrate 
our faith in Him alone by removing all other founda- 
tions, and, one step after another, detaching us from all 
other supports. There are many souls which can not en- 
dure this utter desolation of secondary supports, which 
would be more than they could bear, and they would 
react into open rebellion ; so God allows them to have 
a junior faith, and to lean on other things more or less. 
But to those who are able to undergo the strain of faith, 
He allows all sorts of disappointments — the death of 
bright hopes, the removing of earthly friendships or 
destruction of property, the multiplied infirmities of the 
body and mind, the misunderstanding of dear ones, 
until the landscape of religious life seems swept with a 
blizzard, to compel the soul to house itself in God 
alone. 

At the time the soul is having all secondary support 
removed, it does not perceive what is taking place 
within itself, but afterwards it finds that faith has been 
growing and expanding with every w^ave that has beat 
against it. Faith growls w^hen w^e least expect it ; 
storms and difficulties, temptations and conflicts, are its 
field of operation ; like the storm 3^ petrel on the ocean, 



36 SOUI. FOOD. 

faith has a supernatural glee in the howling of the 
storm and the dash of the spray. 

Faith not only is nourished by the removal 
of earthly props, but by the seeming removal of 
divine consolation. Our answ^er to pra3^er seems too 
long delayed, and faith is tested to its uttermost, when 
it seems as if the I^ord has turned against us and all 
we can do is to continue holding on, with the pitiful 
cry of ''lyord, help me!" Even then faith is ex- 
panding and growing beyond all w^e are aware of, by 
the very extension of the delay of the answer. The 
longer the Lord delayed in answering the prayer of the 
woman of Syrophoenicia, the more her faith became 
purified and intense. Long delays serve to purify our 
faith, till everything that is spasmodic and ephemeral 
and whimsical is purged out of it, and nothing is left 
to it except faith alone. 

Another nourishment to faith is to get before the 
mind the great faith of other people — to read the lives 
of those who have been sorely tried, and who have be- 
lieved God against all odds. Faith kindles faith ; by 
understanding how God has dealt with other souls en- 
ables us to interpret His dealings with us. Our faith is 
inspired by reading the trials of the Bible saints more 
than by reading the pleasant and easy things. 

Another nourishment to faith is that mode of deal- 
ing with us by which the Lord is constantly changing 
the providential channels through which He sends 



FEEDING OUR FAITH. 37 

blessings to us. If God's blessings flow on us in a cer- 
tain way, for any length of time, we unconsciously fix 
our trust on the way the benefactions come, more than 
on the visible fountain. If the Lord gave the Jew^s 
water in the wilderness, sometimes it was from the 
rock, and sometimes it was from a well dug in the dry 
sand. (See Num. 21 : 16-18.) When God sends us 
great spiritual refreshings, He will change the circum- 
stances under which they come ; when He sends tem- 
poral blessings in answer to prayer, He will change the 
channels through which they flow. He does not want 
us to become attached to any mode or phenomenon. 
He wants our faith perfectly united to Himself, and not 
to His tnode of doing things, and hence He will disap- 
point us on the old lines of expectation, and reveal His 
favors from a new quarter, in a new way, and surprise 
us with some great and sweet device of His infinite 
wisdom. And thus our faith is strengthened by disap- 
pointment, until it reaches such perfect union with God 
that it never looks to any body, or any thing, or any 
mode, or any old channel, or any circumstances, or any 
frame of mind, or any meeting, or any set of feelings, 
or at any time or vSeason ; but keeps itself swung free 
from all these things, and dependent on God alone. 
This degree of faith can never be disappointed, can 
never be jostled, because it expects nothing except 
what God wills, and looks to no mode except infinite 
wisdom. Its expectation is from God only. 



38 SOUL FOOD. 

VII. 

THE BENEFIT OF DEEP CRUCIFIXION. 

THE word crucifixion, as it applies to us in a Chris- 
tian sense, ma}^ be defined as any pain or suffer- 
ing which renders us dead to sin or to self, or to the 
things of time and sense. There may be many kinds 
of sorrow and suffering which do not serve the purpose 
of true crucifixion. 

In order that suffering may be a thorough mortifi- 
cation to us, it must be put in the will of God, and 
yielded to the operation of the Holy Spirit. When we 
yield ourselves absolutely up to God, and trust Him to 
take charge of every particle of our being and life and 
circumstances, it is then that His omnipotence takes 
gentle and firm poSvSession of all our trials and suffer- 
ings, and makes them work a true crucifixion in us. 

It does not matter what the occasion of the suffer- 
ing may be. It ma}^ come from our own sins, or pov^- 
erty, or ill-health, or loss of friends, or separations, or 
terrible and protracted temptations, or aSvSaults of evil 
spirits, or the hatred of others, or great disappoint- 
ment, or divine chastisements ; it may come from many 
of these sources ; but let it come from any cause in 
the universe, if we give it over entirely into the hands 
of God, and sink ourselves into His will, with a per- 
fect desire for Him to work His best will in us, 'He will 
make every pain, every groan, every tear, every par- 



THE BENEFIT OF DEEP CRUCIFIXIOX. 39 

tide of our suffering, work in us a death to sin and to 
self, and to all things on earth which will be for oar 
highest perfection and for His glory. 

The death and power of the spiritual life in every 
person depends exactly on the degree of their cruci- 
fixion. There is a divine mystery in suffering, a 
strange and supernatural power in it, which has never 
been fathomed by the human reason. There never 
has been known great saintliness of soul which did not 
pass through great suffering. There is such a thing 
as sufFering reaching a state of perfection. When we 
suffer so severe and so long that we become dead to it, 
and divinely indifferent as to how much we suffer or 
how long it will continue ; when the sufFering soul 
reaches a calm, sweet carelessness, when it can inwardly 
smile at its own suffering, and does not even avSk God 
to deliver it from the suffering, then it has wrought its 
blessed ministry ; then patience has its perfect work ; 
then the crucifixion begins to weave itself into a 
crown. 

It is in this state of the perfection of suffering that 
the Holy Spirit works man3^ man^elous things in our 
souls. In such a condition, our whole being lies per- 
fectly still under the hand of God ; every faculty of 
the mind and will and heart are at last subdued ; a 
quietness of eternity settles down into the whole being ; 
the tongue grows still, and has but few words to say ; 
it stops asking God questions ; it stops crying, '' \Vh}' 



40 SOUIv FOOD. 

hast thou forsaken me ? ' ' the imagination stops build- 
ing air-castles, or running off on foolish lines ; the rea- 
son is tame and gentle ; it stops debating, and quits all 
dogmatism ; the will ceases from its own activity; 
the bluster and zeal of self-action is taken out of it ; 
the choices are annihilated ; it has no choice in any- 
thing but the purpose of God. The affections are 
weaned from all creatures and all things ; it loves 
nothing but God and God's will in any given thing ; 
it has no private ends to serve ; it has no motives ex- 
cept to please God ; it is so dead that nothing can hurt 
it, nothing can offend it, nothing can hinder it, nothing 
can get in its way ; for, let its circumstances be what 
they may, it seeks only for God and His will, and 
it feels assured that God is making everything in the 
universe, good or bad, past or present, work together 
for its good. Oh, the blessedness of being absolutely 
conquered ! of losing our own strength, and wisdom, 
and goodness, and plans, and desires, and being where 
every atom of our nature is like placid Galilee under 
the omnipotent feet of our Jesus. 

Among great blessings resulting from sanctified 
suffering, is that it gives a great wideness to the heart, 
and a universality of love. This uttermost crucifixion 
destroys the littleness and narrownCvSS of the mind ; it 
gives an immensity to the sympathies, and an ocean- 
like divine love, which is be3^ond words. This is be- 
cause creature- love is crucified, and divine love floods 



THK BENEFIT OF DEEP CRUCIFIXION. 4 1 

the whole being. It is as if every drop of blood had 
been drawn out of the body, and the blood of a divine 
being had been poured into all the veins. The heart 
which has been perfectly crushed with suffering until 
it is dead to all its desires will be so inundated with 
divine charity that it will stretch itself out, and wrap 
the world round with fold on fold of boundless, spot- 
less, impartial love for every creature that God has 
made. This immensity of heart loves all nations alike ; 
it is absolutely free from all bigotry, or caste, or nat- 
ural prejudice, or political partisanship, or sectarian 
feeling. It is emphatically a citizen of heaven ; it 
takes as much interest in the kingdom of God in one 
place as another ; it feels as much interest in souls 
being saved in one denomination or one country as in 
another. This may seem strong meat, and many Chris- 
tians will disagree with these words, but when they 
reach this condition, they will find the foregoing words 
perfectly true to their experience. When we reach 
the deepest death of self, we Icve all creatures with 
God's love, and as God loves them, up to our measure ; 
it is not so much we that love others, as it is that 
God loves them through us. We become the channels 
through which the Holy Spirit flows ; He pours His 
thoughts through our minds. His pra3"ers and loves 
through our hearts, His choices through our walls. He 
breaks aw^ay all the banks and boundaries of our nar- 
row education, or creed, or theolog}', or nationality, or 



42 SOUI. FOOD. 

race, aud takes us up into the boundlessness of His 
own life and feelings. 

Another great benefit of perfect suffering, is an in- 
expressible tenderness. It is the very tenderness of 
Jesus filling the thoughts, the feelings, the manners, 
the words, the tones of the voice. The whole being 
is soaked in a sea of gentleness. Everything hard, 
bitter, severe, critical, flinty, has been crushed into 
powder. Great sufferers are noted for their quiet gentle- 
ness. As we approach them, it is like going to a 
tropical climate in mid- winter ; the very air around 
them seems mellow ; their slow, quiet words are like 
the gentle ripple of summer seas on the sand ; their 
soft, pathetic eyes put a hush upon our rudenCvSS or 
loudness of voice. There are many souls who are 
earnest Christians — nay, many who are sanctified — 
who have an indescribable something in them which 
needs the crushing and melting of some great cru- 
cifixion. Their tongues rattle so much, their spirit 
is dictatorial or harsh, they measure other people by 
themselves ; there is something in their constitution 
which seems to need the grinding into fine flour. It 
is well worth the crushing of hearts with an over- 
whelming sorrow, if thereby God can bring us out into 
that beautiful tenderness and sweetness of spirit which 
is the very atmosphere of heaven. This kind of ten- 
derness cannot be voluntarily put on ; it cannot come 
from training ; neither is it a transitory sweetnCvSs. 



THE BKNEFIT OF DKKP CRUCIFIXION. 43 

which is like a spring day intruding itself into winter ; 
but it is that fixed and all-pervading gentleness of 
spirit which is like the fixed climate of the Torrid 
zone. It is the finest outgrowth of perfect suffering. 

Another benefit of complete crucifixion is the de- 
tachme?it frofn all earthly thiyigs which it produces. The 
mind has a thousand-fold attachment to the things in 
this world, which it is not aware of until they are 
ground to pieces by suffering. Did you ever notice 
how your soul stretches itself out into ten thousand 
things of earth and time, and how the fingers of your 
thoughts grasp thousands of things ! Just look at your 
mind ; for every friend you have on earth, there is a 
distinct attachment ; for every piece of property you 
own on earth, there is a distinct attachment ; for the 
ten thousand recollections in your by-gone life, there 
is a particular sentiment or attachment ; for all the 
scenes of earth and associations of time, there is an at- 
tachment ; and besides all these outward things, look 
at that vast, invisible world wdthin your own self — your 
own desires, and hopes, and dreams, and prospects, and 
gratifications for your self, your family, your Church, 
3^our nation, your particular party ; see how you have 
become attached to your own thoughts, until your 
heart seems to have a million springs to it which flow 
round and round countless ol^jects in this world ! 

I am not speaking of things positively wicked ; I 
am not speaking of things which are stigmatized as 



44 ' SOUI. FOOD. 

sinful ; but of those things which Christian people 
recognize as innocent, and yet, in a thousand ways, 
they fetter the heart and bind it to earth. Perfect suf- 
fering will untie the heart, and gently loosen every 
cord that binds us to our foes or friends — to all our 
possessions ; to all the things of the past ; to all attract- 
ive sights and sounds — and give us such perfect in- 
ward liberty from everything on earth that the things 
of heaven can flow down into us, until we feel 
that we are citizens of the New Jerusalem a hun- 
dred times more powerfully than that we are the citi- 
zens of any earthly city or country. We feel deep in 
our hearts that, like St. Paul, we have already ** come 
to an innumerable company of angels, and the Church 
of the first-born, and the spirits of just men made 
perfect. ' ' The coming of the Lord is so real to us, our 
whole being is pervaded with the sweet, attractive 
powers of the world to come. lyike the detached bal- 
loon, we float toward the supernatural. The heavenly 
world comes into us exactly in proportion as all the af 
fairs of earth are emptied out of us, and nothing so 
perfectly empties us and detaches us as perfect suffer- 
ing. It is in this way that God makes our perfect 
crucifixion our crown of unfading joy. 



FRETTING OVER OURSKI.VKS. 45 

VIII. 

FRETTING OVER OURSEIyVES. 

THERE are two extremes of feeling with regard to 
ourselves ; one is the feeling of self-complacency, 
and the other is the feeling of self-abhorrence ; and be- 
tween these two extremes there are any number of feel- 
ings with regard to ourselves in which these two senti- 
ments may be more or less blended. When we begin 
in thorough earnestness to follow Christ, with a definite 
view of being made like Him, it will necessarily make 
us meditate a good deal on Jesus. The more we ap- 
prehend of Christ, His nature and disposition, the 
more we see the infinite disparity between Him and 
ourselves ; and when at times we get a full view of 
ourselves, there seems to be so many things in us that 
are incorrigible that we are tempted to despair of ever 
becoming like Christ. There is a good way and a bad 
way of grieving over our frailties. It is the policy of 
Satan, if he can not fill us with self-conceit and self- 
complacency, to try the opposite policy of making us 
fret over ourselves. 

There are various causes which lead devoted souls 
to chafe over their imperfections. One cause is that, 
for a subtile self-love, the soul desires to be good and 
fair and grand in its own eyes ; it would love to look 
into the mirror of God's law, and behold its reflection 
without a flaw, with the same sentiment that a hand- 



46 SOUI. FOOD. 

some woman loves to behold the reflection of her 
beauty. This spirit of gloating over the beauty and 
Symmetry of one's moral character is often alluded to 
in the Scriptures. The Lord sa3'S of such an one : 
' ' Thine heart was lifted up ; because of thy beauty 
thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy ap- 
pearance ; I will bring thee to the ground" (Bzek. 
28: 17). 

God watches the finest motives and intents of the 
heart, and if we desire great degrees of perfection for 
our own admiration, God will allow great trials and 
weaknesses to mortify us to all refined self -admiration. 

Another reason why devoted souls fret over them- 
selves is the failure to fully appreciate the most infinite 
meanness and blindness and deceitfulness of our hu- 
man nature. There are capabilities of sin, and all 
sorts of unlovely things in our nature, which we have 
never dreamed of. Just to the extent that we see the 
ever-widening, deepening glory and beauty of Jesus, 
we see the opposite in ourselves. 

When souls first begin in the way of perfection, they 
think their defects are very few and very shallow ; and 
after months and years of walking with God, even 
though their hearts have been cleansed from sin, they 
discover certain defects and infirmities still adhering to 
them, which they thought would never annoy them be- 
yond their first fervors of love. They find irresolu- 
tion in the will, and dullness in the faculties and slug- 



FRETTING OVKR OURSKI.VES. 47 

gishness in their nature ; such a lack of heavenly 
cheerfulness, promptness, warm-heartedness ; many 
narrow thoughts ; such a liability to be agitated and 
jostled by simple trifles of the day ; such a facility of 
forgetting lessons we have already learned ; such baby- 
ishness, and faintness, and pusillanimity of spirit, as 
we never expected would cling to us. Perhaps we 
never can see the infinite extent of the fall of man ; 
it may be we shall to eternity be deploring it. 

Could we follow out the beginning, see into all the 
unsounded depths and crevices and hidden caves of our 
souls, and comprehend the greatness Of the reality of 
full restoration to God, we might more perfectly be 
prepared to bear patiently with ourselves. There is 
the subtle desire to seem good in the eyes of others, 
for the sake of being glorious ; most devoted souls 
have lofty ideals which they endeavor to reach. I 
knew a ver^^ pious woman, very refined and beautiful 
in her life and manners. When she was seeking sanc- 
tification, she had an intense desire to be a model of a 
minister's wife ; she had a lofty and beautiful ideal in 
her mind. But in after years, passing through great 
trials and afflictions and humiliations, she found that 
her petty ideal was broken over and over again, at 
least in her own estimation. The Spirit will not allow 
us to fill the phantom of the ideal. God's thoughts 
are not as our thoughts, and when we lie in self- abhor- 
rence at Jesus' feet, with all our religious ideals shat- 



48 SOUIv FOOD. 

tered to fragments, He sees His ideal being carried out 
in us. Fretting over ourselves is a very subtle sort of 
self -righteousness. Self -upbraiding and calling our- 
selves hard names may seem like humility, but in reality 
it is spiritual pride. 

The true medicine for our defects is a deep, quiet, 
patient hatred of self, which is very calm and peaceful. 
Any view of our faults which disturbs our quiet repose 
in Jesus is a wrong view. 

God sees our infirmities infinitely beyond what we 
do ; He pours over us an unceasing stream of patient 
love, in which there is no upbraiding, nor severity ; and 
whatever breaks our quietness of spirit, our firm rest 
in God, is of the evil one. 

I have heard of family feuds, where people hated 
their enemies with such a settled and life-long hatred 
that the very name of the enemy was never mentioned, 
and no allusion made to him. This illustrates, in some 
sort, the calm, settled hatred we are to have for self. 
It is to be so fixed and so deep that we shall ignore 
self in everything, and keep our minds on the things 
of God, and when we see our defects, quietly leave 
them with Jesus, without being discouraged or agi- 
tated. Think how soon the conflict will be over, the 
trials all past ! think of the long, bright years in 
heaven ! think of the time when every pain and mor- 
tification of this life will be forgotten in the sea of 
ecstacy, or else remembered only as a cause of praise ! 



I.ITTI.K THINGS. 49 

The best death to self is to be where we can see every- 
thing mean and ugly and disagreeable in our lives, or 
in our composition, and look at it with quietness and 
sweetness, and a loving self-abhorrence which glows 
with fervor to Jesus, and at the same time does not 
chafe nor murmur with ourselves. 



IX. 
I.ITTI,K THINGS. 



IN the kingdom of God, which is exactly opposite to 
the kingdom of this world, things rank by the 
greatness of quality, and not by that of quantity. 
Our God»proves His Divinity by the notice and em- 
phasis He puts on small things. ' ' Despise not the 
day of small things. " ' • Because thou hast been faith- 
ful in a very little, have thou authority over ten 
cities. ' ' 

There is no better w^ay in the world to test every 
trait in a soul than by little things. Every Christian 
duty, every grace of the Spirit, every privilege of life, 
is being proved and manifested to the eyes of God and 
angels in things so small that we seldom take thought 
of them. It is the unpremeditated and instinctive ac- 
tions and words that reveal the reality of what is in 
us, and not those large, conspicuous things for which 
we especially arm ourselves. The most essential grace 
for a human being is humility ; God appreciates a soul 



50 SOUlv P^OOD. 

in proportion to the depth of its humilit}^ more than all 
other things combined ; but this very grace of lowli- 
ness of heart finds its appropriate home in small things. 
The sweetest things in the world — the best prayers, 
the poorest self-denial, the tenderest words of sympa- 
thy — by a delicate instinct of the Holy Spirit, hide 
themselves in little secret ways, as the turtle-dove will 
build its nest in un- thought- of, lowly places on the 
ground. There are some great sorrows and sufferings 
that can be written out in history for the world to see ; 
but the greater martyrs are those who have thousands 
of agonies in small and hid-away matters seen only by 
the Infinite eye. To suffer with a patient heart in things 
so common and small that people never think of notic- 
ing them is to glorify God in a high degree ; for if we 
suffer in ways so concealed that no eyes but His can 
see it, then surely it is to please Him only. Fanatics 
and self-made martyrs like to show their sufferings to 
notice on a large scale, as a dog will make a loud howl 
over a small hurt ; but a real lowly soul will suffer a 
hundred-fold more in absence and little things without 
advertising it, as the lamb will endure a great wound 
in silence. 

There are times and places for great events and 
things, but in matters pertaining to perfect Christ- like- 
ness of Spirit, the very greatness and splendor of large 
things hide God, and the creature is manifested more 
than the I^ord. But in little things God has an op- 



LITTI^K THINGS. 51 

portunity to show Himself ; He is not smothered under 
so much magnitude and glitter, as electricit}^ can show 
itself better at a small focus than by being spread over 
an immense cloud. There is no intrinsic harm in 
things being great, but we are so foolish we let the 
greatness of things detract us from God. Just in the 
same proportion that all human things grow in size, 
they lose the power of God. Great men, great learn- 
ing, great Churches, great sermons and fine music, 
great camp-meetings, even great holiness organiza- 
tions — anything great in the creatures — soon absorbs 
so much attention that the sensitive Holy Ghost finds 
Himself slighted, and quietly hunts up little people 
and little opportunities, w^here God alone can get the 
glory. In every age of the world, the Holy Spirit has 
been traveling away from big things into the small, in 
order to find places where God alone shall be exalted. 
If we could always remain broken and contrite and lit- 
tle, God would always show Himself to us, and reveal 
His personal presence in the insignificant things of 
daily life, and the Holy Ghost would work marvelously 
through us in sweet and quiet ways, utterly incredible 
to the great and wise ones. God alone knows when 
we are really little. Many will proclaim that they feel 
their utter nothingness, but in one hour after can not 
peacefully and lovingly endure to be contradicted, or 
reproved, or slighted, or slandered. What we are in the 
sight of God, that we are, no more and no less, regard- 



52 SOUL FOOD. 

less of what men or saints or angels think of us, and 
regardless of what we think of ourselves. The Holy 
Ghost knows when we are little, and His abiding and 
wondrous revealings will continue just so long as our 
infantile littleness continues. 

In regard to our w^ork, there is more real holy labor 
in the small than in great things ; for just see, in any 
great work there is human sympathy, man's praises, a 
field for enthusiasm and renown, a sphere for the dis- 
play of gifts and zeal, and motives to arouse the natu- 
ral heart ; but in a little work wrought in obscurity, all 
these high things are weeded out. I do not say that a 
great work may not be done purely for God alone, but 
* it furnishes a field for so much of human ; but in the 
hid-away and shut-in ways of life, our God gives us a 
walled-in garden to sow down with deeds and words 
and manners and looks, out of a loving, tender spirit, 
with no incentive but love, and no purpose but to please 
Him. A little work done only for God to know has in 
it a heavenly courage, a purity of intention, a sweet- 
ness of love, which is very difficult to put in a notable 
act. 

We can show more self-sacrifice in little things than 
we can in great ; because the occasions are more mul- 
tiplied and the temptations to self-indulgence are 
greater. On the other hand, we should not be in 
scrupulous bondage to little things, for if we over- 
magnify little things, we put our souls in slavery, and 



SIMPI.ICITY. 53 

the devil turns our flower-garden into a prison. Little 
things should serve two purposes for us — to see how 
much of God's guidance and presence we can find in 
them, and to see how much of Jesus-like love and serv- 
ice we can put in them. Every religious thing on 
earth will take rank in heaven just according to how 
much Christ is in it. 



X. 

SIMPLICITY. 



GOD'S best gifts are the simplest, such as air and 
light and water and bread. So, in religion, the 
greatest things are unmixed love, pure humility, 
fixed obedience, a single eye to please God. A sunbeam 
repeated gives seven colors ; that is complexity, w^hich 
is the opposite of simplicity. The simple white light is 
infinitely more blessed and useful than the complex, 
colored rainbow. To be fond of complex things indi- 
cates childishness of taste. Complexity in religious 
life bespeaks a baby condition of moral nature. The 
more pure and advanced the mind is, the more it ad- 
mires perfect simplicity in every thing. Simplicity in 
the Christian life is the state of perfect transparency, 
unbiasedness ; no mixedness in the desires or tempers 
or affections; oneness of motive, oneness of intention, 
where the conscience, desires, and will all flow one way 
in sweet agreement ; where faith and hope and love 



54 SOUIv FOOD. 

exist without being mixed with their opposites of doubt 
and fear and hate. 

But no definition of spiritual simplicity will satisfy 
the heart. The Holy Spirit, who is the God of simplic- 
ity, must reveal it to the eye of the soul. When the 
blessed Spirit softly unveils to all our inner perceptions 
the perfect simplicity of the Christ-life, the unmixed- 
ness, the unsullied transparency of God's Word and 
His inner kingdom, there is a holy charm and a sweet 
satisfaction to the mind beyond the expression of 
words. When all doubleness and tangled complexity 
of every sort is purged out of us, and when the Holy 
Spirit floods all our inner being with the very same 
simplicity that is in Jesus, how it makes us love simplic- 
ity in everybody and in everything ! We then have a 
keen appreciation of simplicity in character, manners, 
dress, speech, worship, business. Anything extrava- 
gant, grand, pompous, puffy, stilted, far-fetched, loud, 
slangy, odd, smart, brilliant, or confused or complex, 
in experience, life, or expression, becomes very offen- 
sive. The soul that is living in sweet oneness with 
Jesus will intuitively detect and recoil from everything 
that is mystical, shady, trick}^, or complicated. Such 
a soul abominates the secret lodges, the tricks of trade, 
the keeping up of appearances, or anything subtle or 
selfish ; it deals only with what is open, straightfor- 
ward, and translucent. A person may have intellect- 
ual simplicity, which is the characteristic of all great 



SIMPUCITY. 55 

minds, and yet, if he is not purified by the Holy 
Ghost, he will still be lacking in simplicity of moral 
nature. A person whose heart is rendered perfectly 
simple by the full indwelling of Christ will be inun- 
dated with simplicity in every other direction of mind 
and manners and business. 

Perfect simplicity of spirit is the heavenly shield 
against foolish, fanciful forms of religious experience. 
When people fancy they have found something start- 
ling and new, and profoundly hard to be understood, 
and transcetfidently fine in religion, it is always because 
they have left the old, eternal path of white simplicity 
and become tangled in Satanic fog. A soul that is 
possessed by the Holy Spirit seeks ever to live in an 
ocean of pure, tender love, and be full of good works ; 
and it will instinctively avoid rash, unnatural, and over- 
strained views of religious life and duty. The light 
the Holy Spirit pours into us is pure and white, not a 
red, startling aurora borealis ; the visions of God He 
gives to us are lucid, wide, calm, elevating, sweet, 
restful, and loving, and not those complex, wild, and 
overstrained notions which are always indicative of fa- 
naticism. The Holy Spirit will turn us into the simple, 
quiet, non-combative lamb, and not into some great, 
towering extraordinary giraffe. He will mold us into 
the lowly, uncomplaining, unostentatious love, not 
into some enormous, far-famed albatross. 

Thousands of people ruin their religious experience 



56 SOUI. FOOD. 

by forming fictitious and abnormal notions of advanced 
experiences. They stretch and pray ; strain after some 
unique, great, dazzling monstrosity of spiritual life, 
utterly outside of the mind that was in Jesus ; and the 
devil is ever looking out to gratify such unscriptural 
desires with counterfeits of grace. They lose their dove- 
like simplicity, and are soon tangled up with all sorts 
of absurdities. The Bible reveals to us simplicity of 
desire — ''Thy face, lyord, will I seek;" simplicit}^ of 
will — '' This one thing I do;" simplicity of motive — 
' ' Do all to the glory of God ; ' ' simplicity of guid- 
ance — ''Lead me in a plain path," because the enemy 
is on the complex path. Let us ever seek a Jesus-like 
simplicity, not only in our experience, but also in work 
for Him ; never attempting startling and brilliant 
things ; never wittingly drawing notice to ourselves ; 
never overtaxing ourselves with huge enterprises ; 
never parading the feats we have done, or the extra 
things we are going to do. 

Oh, for that perfect, guileless simplicity of heart 
and life which befits with equal grace an angel or an 
infant, and makes both of them feel at home with each 
other ! 



I^OQUACITY. 57 

XI. 

I.OQUACITY. 

TAIyKATlVENESS is utterly rui-nous to deep spir- 
ituality. The very life of our spirits passes out in 
our speech, and hence all superfluous talk is a waste of 
the vital forces of the heart. In fruit-growing, it 
often happens that excessive blossoming prevents a 
good crop, and often prevents fruit altogether ; and by 
so much loquacity the soul runs wild in word-bloom, 
and bears no fruit. I am not speaking of sinners, nor 
of legitimate testimony for Jesus, but of that incessant 
loquacity of spiritual persons, of the professors of pu- 
rif34ng grace. It is one of the greatest hindrances to 
deep, solid union with God. Notice how people will 
tell the same thing over and over ; how insignificant 
trifles are magnified by a world of words ; how things 
that should be buried are dragged out into gossip ; how 
a worthless, non-essential is argued and disputed over ; 
how the solemn, deep things of the Holy Spirit are 
talked of in a light, rattling manner ; until one who 
has the real baptism of divine silence in his heart feels 
he must unceremoniously tear himself away to some 
lonely room or forest, where no one can gather up the 
fragments of his mind, and rest in God. Not only do 
we need cleansing from sin, but our natural human 
spirit needs a radical death to its noise and activity 
and wordiness. See the evil effects of so much talk. 



58 SOUI. FOOD. 

First, it dissipates the spiritual power. The thought 
and feelings of the soul are like powder and steam — 
the more they are condensed, the greater their 
power. The steam that, if properly compressed, would 
drive a train forty miles an hour, if allowed too much 
expanse, would not move it an inch ; and so the true 
unction of the heart, if expressed in a few Holy Ghost 
selected words, will sink into minds to remain forever, 
but if dissipated in any rambling conversation, is likely 
to be of no profit. 

Second, it is a waste of time. If the hours spent 
in useless conversation were spent in secret prayer, or 
deep reading, we would soon reach a region of soul- 
life and divine peace beyond our present dreams. 

Third, loquacity will inevitably lead to saying un- 
wise, or unpleasant, or unprofitable things. In relig- 
ious conversation, we soon churn up all the cream our 
souls have in them, and the rest of our talk is pale skim 
milk, till we get alone with God and feed on His green 
pasture until the cream rises again. The Holy Spirit 
warns us that ' ' in the multitude of words there lacketh 
not sin.'' It is impossible for even the best of saints 
to talk beyond a certain point without saying some- 
thing unkind, or severe, or foolish, or erroneous. We 
must settle this personally. If others are noisy and 
gabby, I must determine to live in constant quietness 
and humility of heart ; I must guard my speech as a 
sentinel does a fortress, and with all respect for others. 



SORROW FOR SIN. 59 

I must many a time cease from conversation or with- 
draw from company to enter into deep communion with 
my precious Lord. The cure for loquacity must be 
from within ; sometimes by an interior furnace of suf- 
fering that burns out the excessive effervescence of the 
mind, or by an overmastering revelation to the soul of 
the awful majesties of God and eternity, which puts 
an everlasting hush upon the natural faculties. To 
walk in the Spirit, we must avoid talking for talk's 
sake, or merely to entertain. To speak effectively, we 
must speak in God's appointed, tune and in harmony 
with the indwelling Holy Spirit. 



XII. 

SORROW FOR SIN. 



ALL true sorrow for sin must be imparted to us 
from God, for He alone knows just how we 
should feel toward evil. There is something so 
wretched, so inconceivably awful, in sin, that it de- 
stroys our very capacity for any correct feeling toward 
it ; and the Holy Spirit must impart to us, from the 
pure sensibilities of God, that holy grief, that fierce 
principle of sorrow for sin, which is the spring and 
safeguard of true godliness. 

There are a great many degrees of sorrow for act- 
ual sin committed which are mingled with feelings of 
remorse, dread, guilt, fear of wrath. This degree of 



6o SOUI. FOOD. 

sorrow may have a great outburst of manifestation, but 
it is not the deepest form of grief for sin. 

When there is a sorrow for the deep, hidden sinful- 
ness of the heart, the very existence of God's love in 
our hearts makes us to grieve and mourn over the cor- 
ruptions of our fallen nature. It is by the light of 
pardoning grace shining in us that we see the vileness 
and stubbornness of secret depravity ; and our grief 
for our hidden sinfulness is keener and deeper than 
ever for our horrible actions, because this degree of 
sorrow is touched more strongly with God's sensibili- 
ties to sin, and because we more sensitively feel the ut- 
ter meanness and stubbornness of the essence of sin. 
It is out of this sorrow for heart-sin that there springs 
an intense thirst for universal purity. 

Then, after we are pardoned and purified, even 
though the sting of guilt and the inward motives of 
sin are removed, there is planted in us, by the Holy 
Spirit, a finer and continuous sorrow for the dreadful 
fact and effects of sin. After we have been washed in 
the precious blood, there will be times in holy devotion 
when the spotless character and goodness and majesty 
and tend-erness of our Lord will so open up to our view 
that the hot tears will burst from our eyes, and a deep, 
tender, melting sorrow for the sad fact of our sin will 
go all over us. 

This is not a human, but a divine kind of sorrow. 
In human sorrow over sin there is a chafing, fretting, 



SORROW FOR SIN. 6 1 

recrimination, self -denunciation, which is in itself sin- 
ful ; there is denouncing sin in such a severe, sinful 
spirit as to add to the very sin that is being denounced. 
And so there is a poor, human sort of grief over sin 
by which we lash and fret and call ourselves hard 
names, which is only a heathenish form of grief. 
When God takes us up into sweet, holy union with 
Himself, we will see that it is as great sin to fret and 
rage at ourselves as at our fellows. This deep, fixed 
sorrow for sin I now speak of is God's sorrow for it — 
the sorrow that Jesus had for the sinfulness of sin, 
from the hour He clothed Himself in our flesh and 
bones. This kind of sorrow is deep, quiet, melting ; 
it can blend itself with holy joy and praise, just as you 
can see a purple tinge in the finest electric light. This 
highest and Christ-like form of sorrow for sin may 
not always push itself up into our distinct conscious- 
ness, but if the Spirit possesses us, it is always in us 
as the unrecognized tones in music, or the shaded 
back-ground to every picture of Divine grace. The 
more thorough our sorrow over sin, the more persistent 
will be our progress in holiness. 



62 SOUI. FOOD. 

XIII. 

IN DEEPER DEGREES. 

THE same truths we learn or experience in the be- 
ginning of religious life can be so broadened and 
intensified to us by the Holy Spirit that they seem new 
to us ; hence the same terms we used to express our- 
selves by are inadequate to convey the deeper mean- 
ing of our hearts. Suppose a young child, a grow^n 
person recently converted, a perfected and anointed be- 
liever, a disembodied saint in heaven, and one of the 
oldest angels, were all standing together, and should 
all repeat in concert the words, '' God is love ! '' What 
an almost infinite difference there would be in the 
meaning of those words to each of the five persons re- 
specting the words. While the words are the same, 
yet, in the apprehension of their significance, there is 
as great disparity as between a drop of water and the 
ocean. 

There are very few enlargements of the heart in 
Divine things till the believer passes the Jordan of 
sanctification ; and even then the great expansions and 
uplifts into the supernatural life of the Holy Ghost 
will depend on many conditions. 

All the words of God are susceptible of innumera- 
ble degees of meaning, so that the same passage can 
be fulfilled in us over and over, in a deeper measure, 
until it hardly vSeems the same Scripture it used to be ; 



IN DKKPKR DEGRKKS. 63 

and even in the resurrection and glorified states, we 
will find the words of the Bible accomplished in us in 
a measure beyond all our present dreams of their mean- 
ing. This thought is eminently true when applied to 
the manifestation of Christ to our inner spirit. 

Just suppose we could open every Christian mind 
on earth, and get a correct picture of what each one 
has of the Lord Jesus in his or her heart. What a 
picture-gallery it would make ! What the blessed 
Jesus is to us in our heart and mind, measures w^hat 
we are to Him and for Him. It is the operation of the 
Holy Spirit upon our perceptions, mostly in se- 
cret pra3^er, by which Jesus growls on us, till all our 
earlier views of Him are eclipsed by deeper and 
sweeter visions of His person and character. Of this 
widening perception of Christ in the mind, Faber very 
sweetly sings : 

* ' Thou broadenest out with every ^^ear, 

Bach breadth of life to meet, 
I scarce can think Thou art the same, 

Thou art so much more sweet. 

' ' With age Thou growest more divine, 
More glorious than before, 
I fear Thee with a deeper fear. 
Because I love Thee more. 

* * Changed and not changed, Thy present charms, 
Thy past ones only prove, 
Oh, make my heart more strong to bear 
This newness of Thy love. 



64 SOUIv FOOD. 

• ' Jesus ! what hast thou grown to now ? 
A joy all joys above, 
Something more sacred than a fear, 
More tender than a love. 
*^ With gentle swiftness lead me on, 
Dear God ! to see Thy face ; 
And meanwhile in my narrow heart, 
Oh, make Thyself more space. ' ' 
The newness that Faber speaks of is not really in 
Jesus or His love, but in our newer apprehension of 
Him. Oh, what an unlimited field of work the Spirit 
has to open up all our * capabilities to the perceiving 
and receiving of the riches of Christ ! 

It often happens that, just after coming through 
some great loss, or crushing sorrow, or dark trial, that 
the heart that will get a broader, brighter, sweeter view 
of the lyord than ever in the past, as if the stretching- 
of the soul by intense suffering has qualified it for an 
outlet into the depths of God. 

There are riches in Jesus which can be opened to 
us in prayer, for which there are no corresponding 
words, in our language ; traits of His character, in- 
sights into His God-man personality, glimpses of glory, 
emotions imparted from Him, unutterable charms re- 
vealed to us, which work swift wonders and enlarge- 
ments in us, but which we are unable to interpret to 
anyone else. Paul's vision into God may have been a 
thousand- fold deeper than anything I ever had, when 
he exclaimed, "Oh, the depth of the riches!" But 



IN DEEPER DEGREES. 65 

after eighteen centuries in a sea of glory, what must 
be his vision of those riches to-day ! 

Inasmuch as every truth of Scripture is suscepti- 
ble of being manifested to our souls in almost unlim- 
ited degree of pungency, clearness, and force, we should 
diligently seek for the Holy Spirit to continually in- 
crease these things in us. The depth' and altitudes of 
Divine things can not be had by chance, or under the 
delusion that God will w^ork them in us anyhow, if we 
only lie passive in His hand. There are many times 
and things in which our only true work is to lie pas- 
sive in God's will, but in other things it requires 
thought fulness, constant, persevering co-operation with 
the Spirit, to reach the ever- widening fullness of His 
promises. 

As our days go by, the feeling of repentance, of 
sorrow for sin, of self-nothingness, of gentleness of 
thought, of tenderness for others, of the vividness of 
Jesus and His coming, and the reality of all eternal 
things, should steadily grow in brighter colors and hot- 
ter emotions in our souls. Only see how dull and 
sluggish all our nature is toward Divine realities ; that 
even after we have been converted and sanctified, the 
awful effect of the morphine of sin has left such a de- 
posit of indolence and mental stupidity in us as to de- 
mand incessant zeal to realize the brightness and power 
of heavenly things. 

Soon — oh, so soon ! — we are to stand right in the 

5 



66 SOUIv FOOD. 

blazing realities of God and eternity, and all our fac- 
ulties are hardly half awake. Do we often think of 
that inexpressible hour when we shall gaze on our 
precious Jesus for the first time ? Have we vSeriously 
determined in union with the Holy Ghost that all spir- 
itual things shall be more and more real to us ? God 
looks at the determinations of our hearts, and if we 
want the Holy Spirit to make His things powerful to 
us, we must determine that He shall. 



XIV. 

BENEFITS OF TEMPTATION. 

GRACE has to work a great many miracles in us 
before we get far enough along to heartily sanc- 
tion the words of St. James, to ''count it all joy when 
we fall into divers temptation." But there is a place 
of such victory and union with Christ that the soul 
can really find a source of joy from every trial and 
temptation through which it has gone. It is almost 
impossible for us to see any benefits of being tempted 
while we are passing through them ; the sensibilities 
are so pierced by fiery darts, the mind is so distracted 
by evil suggestions, the will is so beset with opposite 
motives, the rattle of spiritual musketry and smoke of 
battles obscures the vision from seeing any blessing 
likely to come out of it. Nevertheless, afterward it 
yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them 



BENEFITS OF TEMPTATION. 67 

who are properly exercised thereby. Among the ben- 
efits of being tried by temptation, we may mention ; 

1. Resisting any given evil to which the soul is 
tempted will induce an increased hatred for that sin. 
The very habit of fighting any particular sin will form 
a habit of loathing for that sin. It is watched as an 
old and bitter foe. In long and bitter feuds between 
families there is not only hatred for the principal agents, 
but hatred for their children, their relatives, their prop- 
erty. So the persistent fight against some old ruling 
passion, some old besetting sin, arouses in the vSoul a uni- 
versal revenge, not only against the old sin itself, but 
against all its family relatives, and a jealous hatred to 
all the insidious steps that lead to that sin. The holiest 
saints in all ages have been those who were the most 
sorely tempted. Surely it is a great blessing to loath sin, 
and a still greater blessing to loath that particular sin 
that has done us the most damage. It is God's design 
that we shall have the most perfect victory on the very 
points where we have been the weakest. Thi^ re- 
quires a limitless crucifixion of self and a complete 
possession by the Holy Ghost. But it can be done, 
and has been done, in thousands of cases. And such 
victory has been brought about by awful temptations 
to some sin which developed a boundless, unrelenting 
hatred for that sin. 

2. Temptation drives us to a deep, serious study of 
ourselves ; it makes us take ourselves all to pieces, to 



68 SOUL FOOD. 

analyze our affections, our wills, our motives, our pro- 
pensities ; it makes us ' search the quality of our ac- 
tions, thoughts, words ; it makes us scrutinize our real 
chances for heaven or hell ; it makes us dig in solitude 
to the very secret foundation of our character. Temp- 
tation compels us to study the awful nature of sin ; it 
makes us trace the danger of wrong affections, of evil 
thoughts, of improper words ; it opens our eyes to see 
the hell-fire that stealthily sleeps in so-called little sins. 
To be thoroughly tempted is the pathway to a thorough 
knowledge of ourselves and of the malignity of sin. 

3. Temptation makes us see our true nothingness 
and weakness. It withers our cleverness, cauterizes our 
smartness, teaches us true humiliation and self-abase- 
ment. It clips the rattling talkativeness from our 
tongues, gives us a real, healthy hatred of ourselves, 
and shows us our demerit in a strong light. It leads us 
to patient endurance. When we are first tempted, we 
chafe and fret ; when it comes back still stronger, we 
whimper and whine ; the next time, we try to fight the 
devil with our fist, we bluster with our will-power 
against being so assaulted ; at the next time, we break 
down and cry like a child whose Sunday clothes have 
been bespattered by a bad boy ; then we wonder what 
we shall do ; then we half despair of getting complete 
victory ;. at last we quiver long-sufferingly in the hand 
of God, and patiently look to Jesus as an afflicted child 
looks to its mother's face while its wound is being 



BENEFITS OF TEMPTATION. 69 

dressed. But for the severe temptations, the soul 
would go skipping along, gloating over its own pretty 
piety, full of self-admiration. As a severe case of 
small-pox will prevent a prett}^ face from standing be- 
fore a mirror, so terrible temptations prevent holy souls 
from admiring their own graces. 

4. Temptation leads us into real heart-felt sympathy 
and compassion for others. It takes deep trials to 
soften and widen the sympathies. Every tree has its 
special parasites to attack it, and it does seem that se- 
verity is the special parasite that fastens itself onto re- 
ligion in a human soul. If a coid, condemnatory saint 
is put through an unexplainable conflict of soul that 
makes him roll on the floor in agony for hours at a time, 
while his body is wet with perspiration, when he comes 
out of that sulphur bath, if he comes out on the Christ- 
side, there will be a tenderness in his judgment and a 
broadness in his compassion which no camp-meeting 
hallelujahs could ever impart. 

Blessed are they that endure temptation till not 
only sinful self is purged out, but till the last form of 
righteous self is gone, and the soul is taken out of its 
furnaces into a supernatural embrace of the Hol}^ 
Spirit. 



70 SOUL FOOD. 

XV. 
THE DAII,Y CROSS. 

IT is only after we are crucified to the carnal nature 
that we can bear our daily cross in the true spirit 
of our Master. It is by the denial or death of sinful 
self that we enter the state of perfect obedience in which 
the daily trials and croSvSes can be borne in deep fellow- 
ship with Jesus. The very order of the words of our 
Savior seems to indicate the steps of experience. *' If 
any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross and follow me/' Here we have, first, 
crucifixion of the natural self-life ; then the purified 
soul bearing its daily sufferings and hindrances, which 
brings it into constant walking and fellowship with 
Christ. It is this daily cross which leads the sanctified 
soul into a deeper death to self, according to its love 
and fervor of obedience. What is our daily cross? It 
is that one or more things which are unavoidable in 
our lives, and which produce suffering of body or mind 
or heart. It is that thing which in our poor judgment 
seems to hinder the easy flow of our religious life. 
Sometimes our cross may be composed of a combination 
of things, but as a general rule, it is some one instru- 
ment or cause of suffering to the soul. Were there no 
suffering of some kind involved, then there could be 
no cross at all, for the only thing in a cross is its pain. 
The outward form of the daily cross may change with 



THE DAILY CROSS. 7 1 

years, or the same cross may continue till death ; but 
in some form it abides. It is as impossible for the true 
saint not to have some cross as it is to walk in the sun- 
shine without having shadow. The Holy Ghost gives 
us to understand plainly that the multitudes of jolly, 
ease-loving, and eavSy-going religionists, who bear no 
daily suffering with Jesus, are only sectarian- born re- 
ligious bastards, and not really kingdom-born souls. 
(See Heb. 12: 8.) It is your daily cross that makes 
you weep more than any other thing ; that sends 3^ou 
to frequent prayer ; that leads 3^ou to ransack the 
promises ; that makes 3"ou cry out, like Jesus, " Father, 
why is this ? ' ' that causes you to put both arms around 
the neck of your Savior in ^^earning love ; that makes 
you sick of earth and self; that gives you wistful 
longings for heaven. Oh, precious old homely, daily 
cross, what deep, tender, far-reaching effects thou hast 
wrought through all these prayer-paved years ! 

There is an hallucination about getting free from 
our daily cross which needs to be broken ; it is a day- 
dream worked up in our minds, a beautiful vision that 
hangs just ahead of us, that some day we will be rid 
of our cross, that we will have no painful annoyances, 
and then our feet can fly unimpeded toward heaven. 
Alas ! that so many saints should get their e^^es set on 
this will-o'-the-wisp dream. If 3^ou want deep union 
with Jesus, getting rid of y^our cross is the very thing 
to defeat it. There is a better victory than freedom 



72 SOUL FOOD. 

from you daily instrument of pain, and that is to pavSS 
into that ocean-depth of the Christ-life where every 
trial can be borne in exactly the same spirit that Jesus 
bore. Boundless, tender love is the condition for tri- 
umphant bearing of our daily cross. When our cross 
has driven us so deep into the warm ocean-heart of 
Jesus that we are kept melted and flooded with quiet, 
lowly, tender, yearning love for God and His king- 
dom, then the cross will have proved its own balsam, 
and then every trial will be fuel to the flame of love. 
To love the cross is understood by only a few Chris- 
tians. People fancy it means loving the cross on 
which Christ died. No ; it means loving that very 
cross in our lives that drives us into deep oneness with 
Christ ; it is to meekly, patiently, lovingly embrace to 
our inner heart the very principle of self-abnegation 
and self-nothingness. It is often the case that devout 
Romanists wear hair-cloth and iron or knotted cords 
next to their vSkin. All that is too superficial ; it does 
not enter deep enough. Jesus did no such foolish 
thing. To bear our daily trial as Jesus did, we must 
take it into our very heart's love, and bear it meekly, 
quietly, lovingly, as unto God, and not to man. 

How long it takes to accept our dail}- trial as a gift 
direct from the hands of our Lord ! His eyes are on us ; 
He notices our inner feelings, thoughts, and choices as 
to our cross. The spirit in which we bear our trials 
here will mark the grade of our standing in the world 



THE DAILY CROSS. 73 

to come. It is b}^ persevering prayer that we get on 
the sunny side of every sorrow, and on the triumphant 
side of every trial. 

It is the sharp grain of sand cutting its w^ay into 
the oyster that is enveloped wath the life- juices of the 
creature and turned into a pearl ; so our daily cross, 
cutting its way into our life's core by being folded 
round and round with many tears and loving pra3^ers, 
becomes in our souls the very pearl of Christ-likeness, 
and more valuable than all our own chosen blessings. 
The Holy Ghost can reveal to us the very disposition 
in which Jesus bore His daily trials, and when we bear 
ours in the same spirit, then indeed do we have fellow- 
ship with Him. 

If it does not please our Father to remove our trials, 
it is because He wants us to seek and receive an over- 
flow of tender love that will bear us on over the trials 
and in spite of them. Pure, limitless love is the only 
true victory over trial. Intense love for Jesus is the 
only water that can make our thorn}^ cross ripen its 
fruit ; so do not cut down 3'our cross, but water it 
with more love and prayer, and wait for its golden 
apples. 



74 SOUL FOOD. 

XVI. 

THE DOMINANT SOUIy QUALITY. 

EVERY human soul has beerTso organized as to pos- 
sess some one dominant trait, or some combination 
of traits, or some quahty in a certain degree which is 
not duplicated in exactly the same proportion, perhaps, 
as in any other soul in creation. God is forever mani- 
festing His exhaustless wisdom and power in producing 
creatures through all the ages which are unique and 
different in some respects from all the other myriads, 
that each soul may be a chosen vessel to show forth 
His gifts and glory and beauty and wisdom in a pecu- 
liar and individual manifestation. In our present con- 
dition, with our nature fallen and ignorant, and often, 
even in the highest state of grace, so hedged *about 
with ignorance and short-sightedness and infirmities, 
we cannot begin to see the existing beauty and holy 
dignity and glory that God designs for e^ch one of His 
loving and obedient children. 

There are seven colors in the rainbow. Each of 
these colors can have ten thousand different shades, and 
each of these shades can be blended with the other col- 
ors and shades of color in untold millions of colors 
and shades of color. So out of the element of spirit, 
soul, and bod}^ which enters into the formation of man, 
and from the five senses of the soul add the intellect- 
ual faculties, and the grace of the Spirit operating in 



TPIE DOMINANT SOUL QUxlLITY. 75 

the heart, the Holy Spirit can combine these mental 
and spiritual qualities in an infinite number of forms 
and degrees, so that each saint shall possess some sig- 
nal mark of divine favor, or some exhibition of divine 
beauty, or some form of love, which will distinguish 
him from all other creatures in the universe. This will 
make each one of the countless millions of heaven to 
have a special sacredness to God, and a special attrac- 
tion for us. This truth is set forth in the different 
gems and precious stones which compose the twelve 
foundations of the cit}^ of God, as described in the 
twenty-first chapter of Revelation. We shall find that 
each of these twelve precious stones, mentioned in that 
chapter, have a special virtue and qualit}^ of chemistry 
and beauty of its own, and when we learn the deep in- 
terior individuality of the twelve apostles, we vShall find 
that each of those apostles had a unique quality — ^some 
dominant trait of moral character — which corresponds 
precisely with the quality of the various precious stones 
in the twelve foundations. 

It is interesting and helpful to us to recognize this 
dominant soul quality in the Lord's people. Each per- 
son we meet makes a special impression upon our 
minds and sensibilities which no one else makes. The 
more thorough the person is saved and filled with the 
Spirit, and united with the divine mind, the more per- 
fectly' will their deep inner personalit}^ be brought out 
and manifCvSted by the Holy Spirit. Some of God's chil- 



76 SOUI. FOOD. 

dren impress us with love, others with illumiuation, 
others with great force, others with faith, others with 
conviction, others with sweetness of spirit, others with 
humihty and resignation, others with authority and a 
regnant power, others with quietness and retirement. 
Could our eyes be sufl&ciently open to see things in the 
full light of the Holy Spirit, and our keen spiritual sen- 
sibilities be perfectly keen to the play of spirit- waves, 
or the detection of spiritual odors, we should find an 
unspeakable joy in the variety and fellowship of all 
God's saints. This will be one of the joys of heaven. 
The soul is larger than the body, and the spirit 'is larger 
than the soul. There is a spiritual atmosphere which 
surrounds us, as the air surrounds the world, and we 
can feel the touch of this soul- atmosphere. 

This dominant quality of an immortal mind not 
only comes out in social contact, but even in books the 
writer will put the dominant quality of his mind. In 
reading the writings of .Wesle}^ I am always impressed 
with his will-power. Whatever I may read from his 
pen, in his journal, or sermons, I am always im- 
pressed with that firm, tireless, overmastering, perse- 
vering, conquering wall -power which was in the man. 
This has alwa3'S been the effect of His writing upon 
me, so much vSo that it tires me to read very much of 
his writings at a time. I believe Wesle}^ had the 
strongest and purCvSt will of any man in a thousand 
years. 



THE DOMINANT SOUI. QUAI.ITY. 77 

When I read John Fletcher, I am impressed with 
an intense, burning eagerness for God, and of a con- 
suming desire for the fulhiess of God, and tireless, in- 
cessant spirit of prayer for the heavenly filHng. This 
is the dominant quality of his writings upon me. 

When I read Madame Guy on, I feel the qualit}^ 
of utter self-abnegation, self-renunciation, and deep, 
fathomless abandonment to God. This qualit}^ per- 
vades her poetry, her biography, her writings ; in her 
domestic life, in prison, at all times, the reigning trait 
of her soul seems to be annihilation. 

In reading Fenelon, I am impressed wdtli great gen- 
tleness and sweetness of spirit, and a flexible, yield- 
ing, tender, compassionate thoughtfulness^ and heav- 
enly sw^eetness. It seems to pervade, like a divine 
odor, everything He touches. 

In reading Faber, I am aware of a great illumina- 
tion and w^onderful discernment unto God and the hu- 
man spirit, and clearness, the white heat of devotion, 
the very poetry of light, the purity and gentle melody 
of sunbeams and stars and crystal fountains ; such in- 
sights into God ; such glowing visions of the Trinity ; 
such cloudless perception of things in heaven. But it is 
the light of a hot sun flaming with devotion, and not 
the light of a winter moon. 

The writings of George MuUer predominantly im- 
pressed me with patient prayer. He is known as a man 
of great faith, and yet the all-pervading quality in his 



78 SOUI. FOOD. 

writing to me is that of patient prayer — the attitude of 
waiting on God and finding out His will before one 
step is taken. This is a very high t5^pe of faith, for 
there are thousands of different aspects and degrees of 
faith. 

Dr. Cullis, with whom I had the pleasure of per- 
sonal acquaintance, pre-eminently impressed me with a 
child-like, simple trust. I found it always easy to be- 
lieve God in His presence. He seemed to carry an at- 
mosphere of trust along with Him. There was in Dr. 
Cullis a gentleness, sweet, child-like playfulness and 
infant-like trust which seemed to have nothing arduous 
in it. 

Dr. Sheridan Baker had to me the dominant qual- 
ity of well-poised accuracy and precision. His words, 
his behavior, his writings, his business transactions, 
his plans, his whole life and expression, seemed 
moulded in a beautiful, well-balanced precision ; noth- 
ing redundant, or extravagant, or narrow, or little, or 
outlandish, or absurd. Everything in the man seemed 
as beautifully poised as the blue dome of heaven. 
Look at the way he managed his business ; disbursed 
his money. I^ook at his writings ; can you find one fool- 
ish, extravagant, or superfluous word ? He was, in a 
very eminent degree, a man of wisdom and heavenly 
accuracy. 

Inskip impressed me all the time as a warrior and 
leader, a man of unbounded magnetism, a Bonaparte 



THK DOMINANT SOUI. QUALITY. 79 

in the Holy Ghost. He could sway thousands of peo- 
ple as easily as a lion sways a cat. He could arouse a 
vast audience into a foaming sea of enthusiasm, with 
waves of white-capped excitement breaking on the 
shore, and in a few moments could quell them to a 
placid lake, whose tiny ripples of low-breathed prayer 
were hardly audible on the beach. 

I have met humble and saintly women, who spoke 
onl}^ a few words ; but there was a quality of hid-away 
quietness in God which came out of them, and im- 
pressed me for days and months like the sweet minor 
strains of some delicate instrument in a great or- 
chestra. 

Every flower has it own perfume, every gem its 
own lustre, every bird its own note, every eye its own 
peculiar lustre, every heart its own regnant quality ; 
and if we will give ourselves up utterly to the posses- 
sion of the Holy Spirit, and seek constantly to be filled 
more and more with the Christ-life, God will make 
each one of us a chosen vessel of some precious gift 
or spiritual quality for the manifesting of His will to 
others. It is useless for any one to try to exert a good 
influence. All such effort is miserable machiner3^ 
It is our place to walk with God, live a continual 
pra^^er, be flooded with the gentle Spirit, seek to please 
God, and He will see to it that a subtle fire shall al- 
ways proceed from us, which will burn itself indelibly 
into other souls in such a manner as to glorify God. 



8o SOUI. FOOD. 

XVII. 

ALONE WITH GOD. 

OVER and over, deeper and deeper, do we have to 
learn the meaning of God's words, until the 
faint perceptions we first had of them seem as dew- 
drops compared with the fathomless ocean we find in 
them at the last. *' And he was left alone, and there 
wrestled a man with him till the break of day. ' ' All 
elect souls pass many times this station of aloneness 
with God, and they find that the wrestling always 
lasts till the breaking of day. 

We have to be alone with God in finding personal 
salvation. Others may be used as instruments in bring- 
ing corrviction, light, help in various ways ; but there 
comes a crisis, both in the work of regeneration and of 
sanctification, in which the soul must be detached from 
others, and deal only with God. How utterly imper- 
tinent are human words in such a crisis ! We must 
meet our Jesus singl}^ ; we must apprehend Him for 
ourself ; He must speak to us with His own voice. In 
such an hour we gaze on the salvation promises, such 
as, ''Thy sins will be forgiven thee," or, ''I will, be 
thou clean ; ' ' but the words on paper need to be im- 
parted into our consciousness, and to effect this, they 
must be re-spoken into us by the Holy Ghost. No 
true soul will be satisfied- with an inference of salva- 
tion, or a dead legal imputation of holiness, or the 



AI.ONH WITH GOD. 8 1 

Opinions of others as to our vState ; nothing less than 
God alone pouring His assurance into our spirits will 
answer. 

The dear Redeemer who loved us from eternity, and 
' ' formed us for Himself, ' ' will not leave the pining 
soul to the second-handed tinkering of others ; He will 
closet us with Himself, and re-speak into us those living 
words out of His Book that have been spoken to seeking 
souls in every generation of the world. God longs to 
give each of us a perfect personal assurance of His per- 
fect salvation. We .must be alone w4th God in the 
matter of suffering. The One who loves us best fits 
the furnace to our frame, arid never once duplicates the 
pattern for any other soul. There are innumerable de- 
grees of suffering among God's chosen ones, yet in 
each case it is unique and personal. The ingredients 
of suffering are of infinite variety in kind and mix- 
ture, but the end to be accomplished is the same. God 
will not allow us to pick our crosses, or to exchange 
them with our neighbor. Oftentimes our chief cross 
is born with us into the world, and stays with us 
through all vicissitudes of life, and all the operations of 
grace, till we have washed it thousands of times with 
our tears, till at last, conquered and mellowed and 
sweetened into utter tenderness of spirit, we smile upon 
the rough old instrument, and praise God for all its 
painfulness to us. Some forms of suffering have the 
community feature in them, and can be shared by 



82 SOUI. FOOD. 

others ; but our very choicest sufferings, those that 
accomplish God's individual purpose in us, those that 
most thoroughly test us and unite us to His will, these 
are private property, into which no other ever enters 
but our sympathizing Jesus. ' ' I will lead the blind in 
a way they have not known." The Lord selects for 
each of us those crucifixions which will most perfectly 
mortify us, and reduce us to our lone nothingness. In 
the earlier stages of deep interior suffering we foolishly 
fly to some chosen creatures for sympathy and help ; 
but in taking our soul-sorrows to earthly friends, we 
are apt to find one of three results — either God permits 
them to be cold and uninterested in us, or we find them 
loaded with woes of their own, or else they do us more 
harm than good by superficial, or fanatical, or unheav- 
enly words. Our sufferings should lead to four things 
— to detach us from creature-comforts by driving us to 
bury our souls deep in the bosom of God ; next, to 
take Jesus in as a partner of our pains, that ''in all 
our afflictions He was aflSlicted ; " next, recognize the 
presence of God in every step of our trials ; and 
fourthly, that we be so thoroughly softened by our suf- 
ferings as to have an unlimited tenderness for all other 
sufferers of every kind. The very best and most fruit- 
ful of our mortifications are those in which God locks 
us In alone with HimvSelf, and thereby saturates us with 
the Holy Spirit. In matters of divine guidance and 
vSpiritual understanding, God often hems us in alone 



AI.ONE WITH GOD. 83 

with Himself, and deals with us and reveals His wall to 
us in W'ays and things that our friends can have no 
comprehension of. When w^e are not in communion 
with God, He will lead us by secondary agents ; but 
the closer we enter into union with Him, the .more di- 
rectly and exclusively He guides by His spirit. 

If we walk in constant fellowship with the Spirit, 
we will have illuminations into providence and duty for 
ourselves personally, which our best friends may not 
always see. *' He knoweth the wa^^ that I take, and 
when I am tried I shall come forth as gold.'' God al- 
ways has some child passing through the experience of 
these w^ords. How little other people understand of 
the real inner life we are living ! Those who think 
they know us so well, and can give us volumes of ad- 
vice, often ' know us very little. The best of saints 
misunderstand our faults, just as the ungodly misunder- 
stand our graces. God will find a thousand ways to 
detach us from creatures and to wed us to Himself 
alone, for He is determined that no one else shall be 
our God. No human being on earth, even the best of 
saints, can be any real benefit to me in love or comfort 
or counsel, except as they are the channels of God to 
me ; whatever they give me out of their own human 
nature wall soon prove poison to my real well-being. 
There is not one atom of balm in the universe except 
from Jesus. When God truly leads along any given 
path, the outcome will evidence it to be of Him, how- 



84 SOUI. FOOD. 

ever queer or wrong it may seem to man3^wlio are wise 
and prudent. As Faber sings: 

* ' 111 that He blesses is most good, 
And unblest good is ill, 
And all is right that seems most wrong, 
If it be His sweet will." 



XVIII. 

INTO THE DEEP. 



IN the 5 til chapter of lyuke, from the first to the sev- 
enth verses, we have an account of Jesus teaching 
on I^ake Gennesaret, and afterwards of the disciples 
launching out and letting down their nets for a draught 
of fishes, which is full of suggestive thoughts. 

I . Before they launched out they were to hear the 
word of God (verse i). This is the first preliminary 
to all of life or service. The first thing we need to 
hear is God's word. Before we can repent, or believe, 
or move out on life's duty, we need to receive in our 
innermost being the living word of God. As the 
earth is dead until shined upon by the sun, so there is 
no capability of life or service in us until we hear the 
living word. ''Faith comes by hearing, and hearing 
by the word. " It is the living word touching our fac- 
ulties, piercing our conscience, melting our hearts, mov- 
ing our will, vitalizing our motives, which prepares us 
for obedience. In proportion as God's word enters 



INTO THE DEEP. 85 

into us, in that proportion are we qualified for our 
mission. 

2. ''Launch.'' When He had left speaking, He 
said to Peter, '' Launch out. So it is when we have 
heard His word spoken into us, by the living Spirit, 
we are then prepared for the command to launch out. 
This word implies the act of the will, which has been 
vitalized by the hearing of the living word. Previous 
to hearing the word, the will is sluggish and rebel- 
lious ; it has no motive or energ}^ along lines of right- 
eousness ; but the imparted word opens up motives, 
imparts strength, and arouses in the will the principle 
of choice and determination, which constitutes the tap- 
root of moral character. There must be a fixed choice 
against all evil, or for all good. It is this fixed choice 
of the will which makes the central element of char- 
acter. God watches the determination of the heart. 
This word ' ' launch ' ' implies throwing ourselves in ut- 
ter dependence on the L^ord — a co-operation wath the 
Spirit, a giving up of our will to His guidance. 

In seeking pardon, or sanctification, or healing, or 
entering some special service, in various ways there 
come times in our lives where, after hearing the truth, 
we are to boldly, with all our will-power, "launch 
out.'' 

3. ''From the shored To launch out implies 
launching from the shore. Going from the shore was 
to leave the multitude, the sights and sounds of terra 



86 SOUIv FOOD. 

firma ; to leave home, and friends, and all that was on 
the land. How much this implies to us who will hear 
all the living word, and launch trom the shore ! It 
implies launching out from nature, with its laws, 
sciences, philosophies, from its materialism. It implies 
launching from the natural mind, with its carnal reason- 
ing, opinions, taste, its prudence and whims, and fash- 
ions. It implies launching from all our past — past fail- 
ures and successes, all our past sins, and all our past 
righteousness as well. The cutting of the shore line 
that ties us to anything behind ; the letting of all 
things go, that, like a receding shore to the sailor, it may 
fade from our vision. 

4. ^'' Into the deep y How deep He does not say. 
The depth into which we launch will depend upon how 
perfectly we have given up the shore and the greatness 
of our need, and the apprehension of our possibilities. 
The fish were to be found in the deep, not in the shal- 
low water. So with us ; our needs are to be met in the 
deep things of God. 

We are to launch into the deep of God's word, 
which the Spirit can open up to us in such crystal, 
fathomless meaning that the same words we have ac- 
cepted in times past will have an ocean meaning to 
them, which renders their first meaning to us very 
shallow. Into the deep of atonement, until Christ's 
precious blood is so illuminated by the Spirit that it 
becomes an omnipotent balm, and food and deep medi- 



INTO THE DKKP. 87 

cine for the soul and body. Into the deep of the 
Father's will, until we apprehend it in its infinite mi- 
nuteness and goodness, and its far-sweeping provision 
and care for us. Into the deep of the Holy Spirit, un- 
til He becomes a bright, dazzling, sw^eet, fathomless 
summer sea. in which we bathe and bask and breathe, 
and loose ourselves and our sorrows in the calmness and 
peace of His everlasting presence. Into the deep of 
God's providences, where we find the most marvelous 
answ^ers to prayer, the most tender and careful guid- 
ance, the most thoughtful anticipation of our needs, 
the most accurate and supernatural shaping of events. 
Into the deep of God's purposes and coming kingdom, 
until the Lord's coming and His millennial reign are 
opened up to us ; and beyond these the bright entrancing 
ages on ages unfold themselves, until the mental eye is 
dazed with light, and the heart flutters with inexpressi- 
ble anticipations of its joy with Jesus and the glory to 
be revealed. Into all these things Jesus bids us launch. 
He made us, and He made the deep, and to its fath- 
omless depths He has fitted our longings and capabil- 
ities. 

5. ''Down your nets.'' Their nets were the in- 
struments for making their living. To us it signifies 
letting down our gifts, talents, occupations, into the 
wall of God. Whatever we can utilize of money or 
business, or voice or pen, or thoughts or labor, or per- 
sonal magnetism, yielding it utterly to the sway of the 



88 SOUI. FOOD. 

Spirit, sinking it all in the sea of His will beyond our 
vision, trusting all results with Him. 

6. ' ' All 7iight^ and nothirig. ' ' At that same place they 

had toiled all night and taken nothing. What failures 

they had experienced ! How weary and discouraged 

they were ! But God loves to take the most forlorn 

failures and turn them into successes. God loves to 

work in such a way as to outwit all the wise. By His 

gentle omnipotence, He takes disappointment, failure, 

trouble, desolation, and all sorts of losses, and out of 

them coins the gold of victory and success. Faber 

sings : 

" God's glory is a wondrous thing, 

Most strange in all its ways, 
And of all things on earth least like 

What men agree to praise. 
** For He can endless glory weave, 

From what men reckon shame ; 
In His own world He is content 

To play a losing game. ' * 

7. ''At thy word,'' The pivot on which Peter's 
faith swung was the word ' ' nevertheless. ' ' Notwith- 
standing our failure all night, " at Thy word we will 
let down the net." This was simple faith embodied 
in obedience. Obedience is the bod}^ in which the soul 
of faith lives and moves. We are to believe and obey 
at His word, notwithstanding the awtul failures of the 
past ; right on the spot of past defeat, over the same 
waters, with the same net, in the same boat, without 



INTO THE DKKP. 89 

any visible signs of success, we are to drop ourselves 
into His will. Simply obey, and leave it with Him, 
whether we take any fish or not. The more perfectly 
we see our failure, the more perfectly can we enter into 
the meaning of this '' nevertheless at the word." 

8. '^ Their net brake,'' ''The lame have taken 
the prey." The draught of fishes was more than they 
asked or thought ; it was larger than the measure of 
their nets, or the size of their boat, or the thinking of 
their minds. 

This same Jesus stands on our sea of life, waiting 
for us to yield an utter obedience, and willing to do in 
us and for us ' ' exceeding abundantly above our ask- 
ing or thinking," on lines of experience and useful- 
ness. 



XIX. 

CONCERNING ANNIHILATION. 

> 
""^r/^NEof the most whimsical and foolish delusions 

V^y which Satan in recent years has palmed off on 

some shallow-thinking Christians is the heresy that the 

" souls of the wicked are to be annihilated. This error 

-.v.*,was never known among the ancient heathens, who 

believed, even before they had a revealed religion, that 

the souls of the good and the bad both exist forever. 

There is no darkness like that which comes from 

rejected light. The rejection of the plain teachings 



go SOUI. FOOD. 

of God's word has brought greater infidels than the 
heathen ever knew, and more heresies than the ancients 
ever dreamed of. 

This notion of the annihilation of the wicked is 
propagated by putting a false meaning upon the Bible 
words ''destruction" and '' punishment.'' The word 
'' destroy " does not mean to annihilate, but to wreck, 
ruin, render utterly useless for the purpose for which 
it was made. The words ''everlasting destruction,'' 
"everlasting punishment," are perverted into meaning 
annihilation. If the wicked are to be annihilated and 
their punishment will not be everlasting, then their de- 
struction will not be ' ' everlasting. ' ' The everlasting- 
ness of punishment is put opposite the everlastingness 
of reward ; and if it does not mean everlasting in the 
one case, neither does it mean that in the other. 

Again, the word " death " is perverted into mean- 
ing annihilation. But the term " death" is the oppo- 
site of "life," and not the opposite of existence. Life 
and death are opposites ; existence and non-existence 
are opposites ; and it is false reason to take the oppo- 
site of life and make it mean the opposite of something 
else. We know in the realm of nature and of mind, 
that death is not annihilation. A piece of plank is 
dead ; it was once a living tree, full of life, and the 
life has now left it ; but it still exists. A dead human 
body vStill exists, with all its members and organs, 
though the life has left it ; yet not one particle is an- 



j 



CONCERNING ANNIHII^ATION. 9 1 

nihilated. And in the realm of mind, Satan and evil 
spirits are dead in sin — they are separated from the true 
life of God, which is love ; and yet they exist. And 
just as truly and as rationally as demons have an ex- 
istence, who are separated from the life of God, so the 
souls of the wicked will exist forever, though dead in 
sin. This is implied in the words of Jesus, when He 
shall say : '' Depart from me, ye cursed, into hell, pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels." These very 
words imply that the wicked exist co-extensively with 
Satan and bad angels. 

Again, there is not a single hint in the whole realm 
of matter of all kinds that anything will ever be an- 
nihilated. The Holy Spirit says, in Ecc. 3: 14: *'I 
know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever ; 
nothing can.be put to it, nor anything taken from it, 
and God doeth it that men should fear before Him." 

This statement covers the whole extent of creation. 
There is no sign that any atom of matter has ever been 
annihilated. Created substances can undergo a thou- 
sand changes — solids become liquids, liquids solids, 
gases turn into rocks, and rocks into vapor — and there 
is no trace in the history of the world of anything 
like annihilation. And so in the human mind ; we 
may forget millions of things, but under certain men- 
tal conditions, every event in our past lives can be re- 
called to the recollection. 

This delusion of annihilation bears upon its very 



92 SOUL FOOD. 

face the handiwork of the devil ; it is just the doctrine 
that will suit the wicked — give them license to live as 
they please in this life, with the hope of plunging into 
non-existence when they leave this world. 

No Christian can entertain an error like this w^ith- 
out weakening the spiritual life, for all error is poison 
to the soul. Yet there are many people who fancy 
they can walk in communion with the Holy Ghost, and 
yet drink down this heresy that is afloat in the world. 
Some professed Christians fancy that they are more 
merciful than the L/Ord, and they think it will help out 
the doctrine of divine mercy to accept of such errors. 
But we must be careful how we accept of the doctrine 
of mercy from the devil, for it is his aim to turn every 
truth of the word of God into a lie. 



XX. 

CONCERNING SOUL SLEEPING. 

WE are living in the times when the winds of her- 
esy are blowing in every direction. One of 
these foolish heresies is ' ' that the soul of man sleeps 
in utter unconsciousness from the time of death until 
the resurrection. ' ' In all those Scriptures where death 
is called a sleep, the plain reference is to the body. 
The only sleep that the Scriptures ascribe to the soul is 
to be asleep in sin. . Sin acts upon the soul as opium on 
the body, rendering it unconscious of the things of 



CONCERNING SOUL SLEEPING. 93 

eternity. Hence the word says, ''Awake, thou that 
sleepest !" 

We find in the Scripture the following facts to dis- 
prove the sleep of the soul in a disembodied state : 

/. That the soul has a natural cojistitution of immor- 
tality. 

We are told by Paul, in the 15th of ist Corinthians, 
that Adam was made a living soul, but that Christ was 
made a quickening Spirit. The word '' living soul " 
signifies an immortal soul ; but Adam had no power to 
communicate spiritual life after his fall. On the other 
hand^ Christ not onl}^ had an immor'tal soul, but power 
to regenerate other souls, and quicken them with the 
life of God. This is the difference between the first 
and second Adam. 

We are told, in Ecclesiastes, 3d chapter, that the 
spirit of a man goetli upward, but that the spirit of a 
beast goeth downward ; proving that at death the soul 
of man, in its mode of existence, is opposite to the soul 
of a beast. We read in Zechariah, 12th chapter, that 
the ''Lord formeth the spirit of man within Him.'' 
And the Apostle speaks of an " inner man." All such 
Scripture plainly teaches that the soul has a formation 
and constitution independent of the physical life. 

//. IVe read i7i several places that after perso7is had 
died^ they were raised from the dead by their souls coming 
back into their bodies, showing that it was im^nortal. 

In ist Kings, 17th chapter, we read the account of 



94 SOUI. FOOD. 

Elijah's raising the widow's son from the dead. It 
says : "And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and 
the soul of the child came into him again, and he re- 
vived. ' ' A similar passage is found in the 8th chapter 
of lyUke, where Jesus raised from the dead the daugh- 
ter of Jairus, when He said : '' Maid, arise ; her spirit 
came again, and she arose straightway." These Script- 
ures prove that the soul is a conscious, immortal per- 
sonality ; that it can exist in the body and out of the 
bod}^, and returns again into the bod3^ 

///. The Scriptures speak of the soul going down to 
hell after the body is dead. 

In the 14th chapter of Isaiah, we have an account of 
the death of the tyrannical king of Babylon, and his de- 
scent into hell. He was such a great man that at his 
death *'hell from beneath was moved to meet him at 
his coming;" and the other wicked kings, who had gone 
into hell before him, * * rose to meet him at his com- 
ing," and exclaimed, *'Art thou become like unto us ! " 
We are also told, in verse 16, that they ''looked nar- 
rowly upon him, and considered him," exclaiming, 
'' Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that 
did shake kingdoms ! ' ' And while all this w^as taking 
place in hell, we are told that his body was in the 
grave * ' covered with worms. ' ' (See verse 11.) 

In the loth chapter of Matthew, Jesus warns us 
"not to fear them which kill the body, but are not 
able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to 



CONCERNING SOUIv SLEEPING. 95 

destroy both soul and body in hell," in which Jesus 
shows clearly that the soul can exist apart from the 
body ; that it cannot be killed, as the body can, and 
that it can be in hell apart from the body. 

The lyord also tell us of an actual occurrence, in 
the 1 6th of lyuke, of a '' certain rich man " that died, 
" and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment." 
This man's soul had been asleep in sin all his life, and 
he never woke up to the reality of eternal things until 
he awoke in hell. This is the condition of millions to- 
day. They will never get their souls' eyes opened un- 
til the\^ open them in hell. 

IV, That the soicl is alive and conscious zvhen sepa- 
rated from the body is cleaidy shown from a gi^eat many 
Scriptures, 

We see, in Ecclesiastes, 12th chapter, that at death 
the dust of man's body ''returns to the earth as it 
was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it." 

*' Life is real, life is earnest. 

And the grave is not its goal, 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest. 

Was not spoken of the soul." 

Jesus told the penitent thief on the cross that be- 
fore that day ended he would be with Him in Paradise. 
(See Luke 23: 43.) The real man to whom Christ 
was talking was not the fleshly body w^hich was soon 
buried, but the immortal spirit in the body. He says, 
' ' Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise," showing that 



96 SOUI. FOOD. 

the real man would be conscious and happ}^ in a world 
of bliss, away from all the sufferings of the body. 

Paul tells us, in 2d Corinthians, 5th chapter, that 
'' whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent 
from the lyord," but that we who have the earnest of 
the Spirit are ' ' willing rather to be absent from the 
body, and to be present with the lyord.'' He also tells 
us, in the same Epistle, 12th chapter, that at the time 
he was stoned at Lystra, and left for dead, he was 
caught up into Paradise, and that whether he w^as in 
the body or out of the body he could not tell, and that 
while in that state he heard unspeakable words ; prov- 
ing conclusively that the real, thinking, knowing soul 
can exist apart from the body, with all its faculties and 
powers intact. 

Peter tells us, in his Epistle, 3d chapter, that after 
Christ was crucified, ''He went unto the spirits in 
prison, who had died in the Flood, and proclaimed unto 
them His victory," vShowing that the souls of those 
drowned in the Flood were alive, and had been con- 
fined in a place of imprisonment ever since the days of 
Noah. 

V. The recognition of souls in the disembodied state 
is expressly stated in nearly all the foregoing Script- 
ures, 

The souls in hell immediately recognized the king of 
Babylon, in Isaiah 14. The rich man in hell at once rec- 
ognized Abraham and Lazarus across the impassable 



CONCERNING SOUI. SLKKPING. 97 

gulf ; and Abraham noticed his lost kinsmen. Moses 
had died, and his body was buried in one of the val- 
leys in the mountains of Moab ; but we read, in Luke 
9: 80, that at the transfiguration of Jesus, Moses and 
Elijah appeared with Him, and that they were recog^ 
nized by three apostles. When Stephen was being 
stoned he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing 
on the right hand of God, and he said, '' Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit. ' ' This demonstrates the fact that 
the spirit of Stephen was not going to die or sleep with 
his body, and that he recognized the Savior in heaven. 
When St. John was in Patmos, receiving the revela- 
tion, he ''saw the souls of them that were slain for 
the word of God, and for the testimony which they 
held, and he heard them cry, ' How long, O Lord? ' '' 
(Rev. 6: 9-1 1). This proves that these disembodied 
martyrs were not asleep ; that they were recognized by 
the Apostle ; that they possessed all their faculties ; 
that they could pray ; and that they were earnestly ex- 
pecting the time to receive their resurrected and glori- 
fied bodies. 

These Scriptures teach that souls in the disem- 
bodied state possess all their mental faculties — thought, 
memory, reason, perception — unimpaired; and that 
they have the same moral character that they had in 
the bod}^ ; that the}^ have suffering or joy, torment or 
comfort ; that the}^ recognize each other ; that they can 
communicate with each other ; that they take a great 

7 



98 SOUIv FOOD. 

interest in the moral affairs of this world in reference 
to its destiny. 

In confirmation of these Scriptures, volumes could 
be compiled of dying vSinners who have had glimpses 
into hell, and dying saints who have had visions into 
heaven, and recognized the presence of angels and de- 
parted friends ere they left the body. For a Christian 
to be so deceived as .to believe that the soul is uncon- 
scious after death, shows rather a lack of Scripture 
knowledge, or a mind that is deluded by Satan. 



XXI. 

GIVING THE TENTH. 

IT is no small perversion of Scripture that the passage 
in Malachi 3: 10, about bringing the tithes into the 
storehouse, should always be applied to a spiritual con- 
secration. If thousands of Christians would only take 
it just as it reads, and begin at once to give God a tenth 
of all they receive, it would prove to be the keystone in 
the arch of a full consecration, and one of the great- 
est blessings of their lives, both spiritually and tem- 
porally. 

Some may say that the giving of a tenth was only 
a Mosaic law ; but this is a mistake ; it was in practice 
by the saints of God five hundred years before the giv- 
ing of the law. Abraham gave a tenth of his spoils 
to the priest of God (Hebrew 7:4); and Jacob gave a 



GIVING THi: TKNTH. 99 

tenth of his income to the Lord ; and, so far as we 
know, it was the practice of Noah and the saints of ear- 
liest ages. When the Holy Spirit gets possession of a 
soul, He writes this principle of giving a tenth on the 
heart, showdng it is not merely a Mosiac, but a Holy 
Ghost law. 

There are marvelous spiritual blessings connected 
with giving a tenth to the Lord ; it is a wonderful 
stimulant to faith ; it strengthens obedience on all other 
lines ; it brings light into the mind on other subjects ; 
it is as a safeguard against greed and stinginess ; it 
makes benevolence a fixed affection in the soul, and 
not a spasmodic action ; it makes us appreciate our 
nine- tenths far more ; it makes God's special provi- 
dence more real to us ; it makes the conscience tender, 
and gives sweet access to God in prayer. 

It is a great blessing financially to constantly give 
a tenth of all you receive to the Lord.' The living 
God keeps His financial promises just as absolutely as 
He does His salvation promises. ' ' Honor the Lord 
with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all 
thine increase ; so shall thy barns be filled with 
plenty.'' How few Christians positively believe this 
word and steadily act on it ! I have never yet met a 
person who gave regularly a tenth to the Lord that 
ever regretted it. They uniformly testify that since 
they have done so, they have prospered far better in 
all their temporal affairs. I am abvSolutel}^ sure, with 



lOO SOUI. FOOD. 

Muller, that God does not want any of His children 
in debt, or destitute ; and if all of us who are in debt 
will repent of the sin for getting in debt, and promise 
God never to go in debt again, and to give Him one- 
tenth of all we receive, and stick to the convenant with 
a loving heart, He will begin to work financial mercies 
for us, and soon have us free from debt. (See Rom. 
13: 8.) 

After losing my orange groves in the freeze of Jan- 
uary, 1895, ^^^ being heavily in debt, I acted on thCvSe 
principles; and since I made that convenant, God has 
wrought up undreamed-of financial miracles. A lady 
thousands of miles from my home wrote me, to my 
surprise, saying she felt impressed of God to give me 
$80 every year till my debts were paid ; and many 
other things have happened just as marvelous. Since 
that covenant I have never gone a cent deeper in debt ; 
have never been without some cash money, and have a 
hundred- fold more assurance for all financial supplies 
than when I had the property. So firm is my faith on 
this point that if I had no postage stamp to send a let- 
ter to my family, and had some of God's tenth by me, 
I would not touch it to buy a stamp, but wait on my 
Heavenly Father for it. 

God will not do wonders for us till we get awa}^ 
from our slip-shod faith and partial obedience. A 
great many will say they keep no regular account ; 
they think they give about a tenth, etc. That is the 



GIVING THE TENTH. lOI 

way I used to give, but I see now that is shilly-shally 
obedience. It will please God to give Him the tenth, 
and not a guess about the tenth. Then some aim to 
give a tenth at the end of the month, or end of the 
3^ear. This is degrading our Lord by putting self first 
and Him last. Honor God by putting Him and His 
kingdom always first, and then He will honor you. 
Just as soon as you receive any mone}^, be it ever so 
small, take out the tenth for the Lord ; do not wait till 
you spend the nine-tenths ; do not use it all up, and 
promise to pay the Lord's tenth out of the next money 
you get ; that is a slovenly, shabby way of dealing with 
God. Treat your Lord in all these matters with the 
respect and honor as if He stood visibly by 3^our side ; 
don't be mean and stingy in your treatment of Him, 
but generous and prompt and free-hearted, and God 
will treat you like a prince, and ever and anon He will 
astonish you with some great favor. Be you ever so 
poor, old or young, married or single, parent or child, 
even if you have only an occasional dime to call your 
own, give one cent of it to God ; do it religiously, lov- 
ingly, rigidly, and, as sure as 3'ou live. Omnipotence 
will find some way to bless you in your temporal 
affairs. 

Will you believe this? Will 3^ou begin at once to 
do it ? AvSk the Holy Ghost to help 3^ou keep it as a 
hoh' covenant. Ask for divine guidance just where 
you should give the tenth ; don't bestow it according 



I02 SOUIv FOOD. 

to your preference, but keep your mind impartial, and 
the Spirit will lead you where to give it. 

If you follow this rule, you will be perfectly sur- 
prised how much you can give away in a year and 
never miss it. I used to think I was liberal ; but since 
giving a tenth regularl}^, I find I give three times as 
much as I used to, and do it with far more ease and 
comfort. 

*' Give, and it shall be given 3^ou." God's word is 
true ; obey it, prove it, and see for yourself. 



XXII. 
^^IvET GOD." 



THE name of God occurs thirty-five times in the 
first thirty-five verses in Genesis ; and the word 
* ^ let " occurs fourteen times in the same verses. The 
number thirty-five is five times the religious number 
seven, and fourteen is twice the religious number seven, 
and put together they make seven times seven, which 
is the Pentecostal number of Scripture ; so that the 
words ''let God" form the ke}^ to the religious life, 
and the key to the Pentecostal measure of that life. 
.The first ''let" is, " Let there be light," and the last 
is, "Let them have dominion overall things." So 
that from the first dawn of divine light in the soul up 
to the glorious kingdom in the new earth, the secret of 
every step is to be so utterly yielded to the unfolding 



'' LET GOD." 103 

will of God avS to let Him work in us, and by us, and 
for us. 

When we are seeking pardon, how all our mental 
powders are tangled in darkness, all our heart rent 
with such mingled emotions of fear, hope and sorrow ! 
how our will struggles like a chained animal, till in 
self-despair we throw ourselves for weal or woe into the 
hands of Jesus, and just let Him save us ! 

Then w^hen, as believers, w^e are heart-sick over our 
interior sinfulness of nature, and longing for inward 
rest and purity of soul, after so many sore conflicts 
and unexplainable alternations between light and dark- 
ness, w^e are brought to a crisis, and the little words, 
''let God," are the only outlet from self-struggling 
into the calm, sw^eet rest of the cleansing power of 
Jesus. Those who receive Jesus for the healing of 
their bodies have the same lesson of * ' let God ' ' to 
learn over again. How much physical or mental suf- 
fering w^e endure, how^ man}' swingings of hope and 
fear between sanity and insanity, between life and 
death, how many tossings of argument in the reason 
for and against divine healing, before one learns to 
yield all the ills of the body to the healing will of 
Jesus, and without a struggle or an anxiety just '* let " 
Him pour the health-virtue of His precious body 
through every part of the being. And then, in addi- 
dition to these definite steps of ' ' letting God, ' ' there 
are numerous instances in the seeking of larger endue- 



I04 SOUI; FOOD. 

ments of the Holy Spirit, in the the realm of God's 
providences, where we have to learn over and over 
again to cease from all our planning, all our imagin- 
ings of ways and means, all our uneasiness or care, 
and just calmly, sweetly, patiently, humbly '* let God '' 
manage and work in us and for us along lines beyond 
all our dreaming. These words ' ' let God ' ' are the 
latch to hundreds of doors in the vast palaces of di- 
vine life and providence. The Lord has ways of shut- 
ting up His children at times in mysterious providen- 
tial walls, through which all their ingenuity and labor 
can make no door. How often they strive to break 
through inpenetrable walls of limitation and difficulty, 
think of ways and agencies of getting through till the 
brain aches, when at last they lie helpless and limp, 
and consent to ' ' let God ' ' do good as He pleases ; 
when lo ! the iron gates of circumstance and hin- 
drances open noiselessly of their own accord. (See 
Acts 22 : lo, ) Because we have ' ' let God ' ' convert, or 
sanctify, or heal us, does not insure a perpetual letting 
of God in all other matters and directions. As a rule, 
we have to learn to ' ' let God "do in us and for us, 
over a great many times and in a variety of things, be- 
fore we form a fixed habit of always letting Him. 

It is only by an intimate union with the Holy 
Spirit, causing our innermost being to move in steady 
harmony with God, that we can be ready at every 
sharp turn and under all sorts of circumstances to ' ' let 



''I.KT GOD." 105 

God" mould and move all our welfare according to 
His best purpose. It is not a cold fatalism or stocial 
indifference to God's will, but a warm, bright gulf- 
stream of Holy Ghost life, in which all the choices, 
motives, intentions, affections, and volitions steadily 
coincide and co-operate with God's will concerning us. 
" Let the peace of God rule in 3^our heart," '' Let the 
word of Christ dwell in you richly," ''Let not your 
heart be troubled. ' ' Let God have all your inner and 
outer difficulties just as they are, without moving a 
finger to tinker them up. Let the slow, imperceptible, 
noiseless ocean of omnipotence flow into you, into your 
being, your life, 3^our troubles, your friends, foes, 
finances, into that unexplainable mystery which per- 
plexes you, into that very thing that just now weighs 
upon you. 

From this moment lift the latch of your will, and 
let that eternal, silent sea of love, in which all the 
angels, all the worlds, and all ages float, take posses- 
sion of you and 3^ours forever. If from the very 
depths of our hearts we yield a constant, loving " let " 
to God, then He, through the eternal Spirit, will speak 
into us and for us all these fourteen ' ' lets ' ' of His 
marvelous creation, from "Let there be light," to 
* ' Let him have dominion over ' ' all things 



I06 SOUIv FOOD. 

XXIII. 

BURDENS OF PRAYER. 

WHILE Jesus is making intercession at the right 
hand of God, the Holy Spirit on the earth is 
praying through the hearts of those in whom He 
dwells. The human spirit is the vehicle through which 
the Holy Ghost pours His deep, divine yearnings, and 
in the same proportion that He widens and fills our souls, 
will He breathe into us these strong, sweet, melting in 
tercessions, which are according to the will of the 
Father. 

It is an infinite honor for the Spirit to put any bur- 
den of prayer on us, even when it is for our personal 
or family welfare ; but when He draws us out into the 
priestly life of Christ, and puts in us unspeakable 
prayer for persons and objects that lie far beyond our 
personal or family interests, then- it is in a higher sense 
praying in the Holy Ghost and alone for God's glory. 
The Spirit will divide and diversify His burdens of 
prayer according to the grace and gifts of each believer, 
calling some to pray in one direction and others in an- 
other, and He will put the pressure of prayer on and 
continue it, according to the soul's capacity, and its de- 
gree of willing co-operation with God in the prayer. 
A history of special burdens of pra3^er, as to their in- 
tensity and duration, would be amazing, especially if 
traced in connection with the answer that followed. 



BURDENS OF PRAYER. I07 

Many 3'ears ago the Spirit drew me out in some 
singular prayers. For over a month I was led to prayer 
for little children who were unmercifully whipped ; 
they would be brought before my mind so vividly I 
could almost hear their screams, and I would weep 
and pray for them as if my heart would break. Then, 
for over a month, I was burdened to plead for the in- 
sane, and at such seasons I could mentally see them, 
and enter into their sufferings beyond anything I had 
imagined. 

One day, in the winter of 1879 and 1880, there fell 
on me suddenly a great prayer for the spread of holi- 
ness in the Southern States. I was led to pray three 
or four times a day for this ; the spiritual condition of 
the Churches from Norfolk, Va., to New Orleans was 
revealed to me in such marvelous light, from day to 
da}^, as no one would credit unless they had a similar 
experience. M}^ tears flowed in streams ; my heart 
swelled and throbbed with unutterable longings to evan- 
gelize in my native Southland. I was then a pastor in 
New Albany, Indiana. When that burden of prayer 
had continued for two months, I learned with joy that 
the celebrated John S. Inskip and part}^ were in 
Charleston, S. C, conducting a great holinCvSS Re- 
vival. In after years I met Miller Willis, of South 
Carolina, and to my surprise I found that he and an- 
other friend had been pra^'ing together every night for 
three months, and at the same time I was led to pray. 



I08 SOUI. FOOD. 

Three years after that time I had the great joy 
of attending a wonderful HoUness Convention in 
Gainesville, Ga., at which time there was organized 
the first Holiness Association ever formed in the South, 
so far as I know. Since then, what has God wrought ! 
In the past few years, since passing through many in- 
expressible trials on various lines, it has pleased the 
Holy Ghost to again draw me out into the deep, warm 
gulf-stream of intercessory prayer. I never tire of it ; 
and if I can find the time, I love to spend from two 
to four hours every da}^ in secret pleading with God. 

At 4 P. M., January 3d, 1895, an overwhelming 
prayer came on me for a great Holiness Mission in San 
Francisco, which continued every day for a year. 

In July, 1895, another burden of prayer was given 
me for a great Revival of sanctification among the 
black people of the South, lasting six months. 

In September, 1895, one afternoon a great longing 
prayer came in my heart for a mighty outpouring of 
the Spirit in sanctifying and healing power upon the 
north of Ireland. This prayer for Ireland has been 
on me with many tears for over seven months. 

In December, 1895, I was burdened for Cuba and 
Armenia and Pensia, for their liberation from the 
beast and the false prophet, and opening up to full 
Gospel light. 

In January, 1896, there came a deep, sad, weeping 
prayer in m}^ soul for the poor little girl-widows of 



BURDENS OF PRAYER. IO9 

India ; as I pray for them, my heart aches, and they 
seem as dear to me as my own children. 

In the past three months I have been much drawn 
to pray for large outpourings of the Spirit in Pueblo, 
Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Staunton, Va. In addi- 
tion to these, I have special and peculiar longings in 
prayer for various persons ; in some cases for their 
conversion, others for sanctification, others for healing, 
others for deliverance from awful snares of Satan which 
I felt they were getting into, others for financial relief, 
others for God to send them to mission fields. Some 
of these burdens have been painful , even distressing ; 
some have been accompanied with a longing and pining 
of heart, and some were with a heavenly sweetness and 
tenderness beyond expression. In some cases, the 
prayers came on me suddenly and powerfully, and, after 
days or months, gradually left me ; in other instances, 
they came gradually, getting stronger, till I would 
groan and weep for a season, and then suddenly 
leave me. 

While in prayer for these various places, they are 
brought to my mind so vividly. I seem to see the real- 
ities, scenery, and the people and their mental and 
moral condition ; and in the case of individuals I am 
burdened for, the Holy Spirit makes me feel at times 
the very state of their hearts and minds ; if they are 
self-willed, I have a distress in prayer for them ; if 
they are yielding, I feel a sweet flow of prayer. I 



no SOUI. FOOD. 

hope many who read this will abandon themselves full}^ 
to the sway of the Spirit in prayer ; we thereby en- 
ter the true priestly life of our precious Jesus. It may 
be seen in eternity that we accomplished more by our 
prayers than by all other things combined. 



XXIV. 

SOME STRIKING INCIDENTS. 

IT takes us a long time, it seems, to come into the 
full realization that the Holy Ghost is actually an 
Omnipotent person, extending around the whole world, 
and that He often w^orks in a simultaneous and won- 
drous way on souls widely separated from each other. 
A thing that we have believed for years, when brought 
home to our experience by living facts, seems so new 
and powerful to us. 

In the autumn of 1894, when going through great 
trouble, I spent much time in fasting and prayer. It 
pleased my heavenly Father to encourage me by man}^ 
wondrous instances of the guidance of the Holy Spirit ; 
so striking were they that I feel I ought to print some 
of them for the encouraging of the hearts of others. 
A lady in Nottingham, England, wrote me that she 
felt impelled to tell me how God had used my little 
book, '* White Robes," to lead her into the restoration 
of the fullness of the Spirit, and that, when she went 
into a private room to pray, the Spirit, in a very defi- 



SOME STRIKING INCIDENTS. Ill 

nite wa}^ put my name into her mind, and a special pe- 
tition in her heart for me. This special petition given 
to her for me was, word for word, the very prayer that 
I was pleading for myself at the same time, five thou- 
sand miles away. During those months I used to 
awake quite regularly at three o'clock in the morning, 
and get up and spend an hour in prayer. A very dear 
minister, who walked very close to God, came to visit 
me, and said that, for some time past, he had strangely 
awakened at 3 A. M., and had felt led by the Spirit to 
get up and pray for me. During this time, I received 
a letter from a devoted man and his wife, who I had 
never seen, living in Canada, over two thousand miles 
from m}^ home, saying that several times they had been 
strangely awakened at 3 A. M., and clearly impressed 
by the Holy Spirit to have a season of prayer for me. 
The evidence was overwhelming that all this was the 
direct agency of the omnipresent, personal Holy Ghost. 
My whole being was profoundly impressed by those 
movements of the Spirit. I saw, in a stronger light 
than ever before, that the Holy Spirit, as an infinite 
personality, enveloped the human race as a tender, 
watchful ocean of love ; I saw an extraordinary proof 
of His compassion and interest in me, an infallible 
proof that He would answer the prayers which He had 
so marvelously prompted. Glory to the Triune God 
forever ! At that time, in my reading of the Bible, cer- 
tain passages would be powerfully given to me by the 



112 SOUI. FOOD. 

Spirit as my own, and in nearl}^ every such instance I 
would receive, a few days after, a letter from some 
saint saying they felt led to pray for me, and that 
while in prayer the Spirit had very definitely given 
them such a passage of Scripture for me, which was 
the very passage given to me some days previous. 

This leading of the Spirit occured a great many 
times ; and in one instance four persons, in different 
parts of the country, each wrote, giving me the same 
text, as having been impressed on their minds while 
in prayer for me. I knew these things w^ere not by 
chance, but from God, and they made those portions 
of the word doubly precious to my heart. I have 
scores of those letters filed away and the passages 
marked, as loving memorials of the minute guidance 
of the Holy Spirit, 

I remember, one week in the early summer of 1895, 
that many different things w^ere pressing sorely on my 
heart. The Spirit put on me a burden of prayer which 
seemed greater than my heart could contain. After 
pleading with tears for several days, I cried out in an 
agony, ''O lyOrd, please put this burden of prayer on 
some other souls ; do select some of your dear saints to 
share this prayer with me." In four days after I re- 
ceived three letters in the same mail — one from the cit}^ 
of Denver, one from the hills of Kentucky, and one 
from a village in Georgia — each writer saying that on a 
certain day, the day of my agonizing prayer, they had 



SOME STRIKING INCIDENTS. II3 

been strangely and ppwerfuUy burdened in prayer for 
me, and all the three testified of having the assurance 
that the prayer would be answered. You can only 
imagine how the conjoint testimony of these three let- 
ters — all received the same moment — ^went through my 
innermost heart. I have those wonderful letters yet, 
every line of them written as under direct inspiration 
of God. 

My poor heart swells with love and my eyes flow 
with tears of gratitude, and I in memory read over and 
over the life pages of the marvelous, far-reaching, 
particular, personal, and precious leadings of the 
blessed Comforter. The deeper our union with Jesus, 
the more clearly we recognize the presence of God in 
every thing and event. One of the reservation secrets 
of heaven will be to re-turn the pages of our earthly 
lives and see every moment of our history from God's 
standpoint, and find that His watchful, overruling pres- 
ence was hidden in the very places where we least sus- 
pected Him. If we look for wonders, we will not 
likely see them, but if we seek in perfect lowliness to 
please God, He will give us some wondrous proofs of 
His being the living God in the little things of our 

lives. 

8 



114 SOUI. FOOD. 

XXV. 

PRAYING FOR AN ENEMY. 

I AM convinced we have far too shallow views of that 
command to pray for our enemies. It means a vast 
more than to say, ' ' God bless our foes. ' ' It means 
that we are to take them on our heart in good earnest, 
and intercede for them, particularly, lovingly, perse- 
veringly — pray for them till out of a loving heart we 
can unite their highest welfare with our own. 

I have been blessed all my life with a few enemies ; 
at a few periods in my life with a great many, and 
sometimes they have been exceedingly bitter. But in 
reviewing the past, I notice that I have had the fewest 
enemies and the most popularity when I was the least 
spiritual and the farthest away from God ; and that, 
when I have had deepest fellowship with Christ, I have 
been the most misunderstood by religious people and 
the most intensely hated by bad people. I can recall 
many seasons when I felt it a necessity to pray espe- 
cially both for positive enemies and for Christian peo- 
ple, who had greatly injured me, while they did not 
intend to be my foes. One such circumstance oc- 
cured in the early summer of 1895. A certain very 
bitter enemy had done many things to greatly damage 
both me and my family. I had often prayed for him 
in my secret devotions, but one day I felt drawn to go 
off alone into a forest and spend some hours in plead- 



PRAYING FOR AN KNKMY. II5 

ing to God for him and his family. At the beginning 
of my prayer, I tried to exercise great charity for the 
man by putting myself in his place, and looking at 
my own miserable self from his standpoint. But the 
Spirit soon showed me that was the human way, and 
not the Divine. It came to me that what I needed was 
to love that man with the identical same love that Jesus 
had for him ; to pity, sympathize with, and feel toward 
him exactly as God felt, up to my capacity ; that I 
was to be a living vessel in such union with the Holy 
Spirit that Jesus could love him through me, and pour 
His Divine love through my affections. It was re- 
vealed to me that in order to love him as Christ loved, 
I must utterly abandon my being to the Holy Spirit, 
for the purpose of becoming a channel of the perfectly 
unselfish, impartial, disinterested, tender, and bound- 
less compassion of God. I complied with the sug- 
gestion of the Spirit, and before I had prayed an hour 
the fountains of my soul were broken up, my tears 
flowed like rain ; I felt a warm, soft love for him ; all 
his welfare of body and soul, all his family, all his tem- 
poral and eternal interests, became very precious in my 
sight. 

As I continued to plead with God for his soul's sal- 
vation, and for all his welfare in detail, suddenly the 
Spirit opened to my mind what a lovely Christian that 
man would make if he was thoroughly washed in 
Jesus' blood, and filled with the Holy Spirit. I seemed 



Il6 SOUL FOOD. 

to see his soul and all his gifts and powers, now so 
perverted b}^ sin — how lovel}^ they would be if trans- 
formed by Divine grace ! As I viewed him under the 
possibilities of saving grace, he seemed transfigured in 
my vision. I then prayed that I might feel a Christ-like 
grief for any trouble that might befall him. From 
that moment it has been easy and sweet to pray for 
him, and I never think of him except with a pecul- 
iarly tender love. 

A few months after, that man had a great calamity 
which brought pain and sadness to my heart ; yet I 
was accused of praying the misfortune upon him. Our 
neighbors and acquaintances can never really know 
what is in our hearts till that great day. It is infi- 
nitely more essential that we actually love our fellows 
than that we convince them of our love. If Jesus was 
unable to convince men of His love to them, are we 
greater than He? It is the deep reality of having the 
Christ-love flow through us to everybody that we need, 
far more than the success of showing it to people. I 
find the more I pray for anyone, the easier it is for me 
to think well of him, and to look at his conduct in the 
most favorable light. 

Not only must we pra}^ long and fervently for our 
positive foes, but pray much for religious people who 
are cold and severe to us ; for if we do not keep our 
hearts warm and pure, and very tender to everybody 
on earth, we lose that vSweet sense of oneness with 



MARVKLOUS ANSWER TO PRAYKR. ll^ 

Jesus which is worth more than all the friendships of 
creatures. It is not my calling to make people love 
me ; it is my great business to have perfect union 
with the Holy Spirit, and to love all with God's love, 
whether they love or have confidence in me or not. 



XXVI. 

MARVEI.OUS ANSWER TO PRAYER. 

DURING the 3^ear 1895, ^^^ Lord permitted me to 
have in my life and experience many very wonder- 
ful answers to prayer. I wish now to give an account of 
only one among a great number. 

It is well known that the orange groves in Florida 
were nearly all killed in January, 1895, so that my prop- 
erty, from which I expected a support, was all ruined. I 
was divinely kept from even a thought of a murmur. 
I fasted and prayed many days, and made a solemn cov- 
enant with God : First, I would ask help of no one ex- 
cept the Lord. Second, that I would not go any 
deeper in debt. Third, that I would very rigidly give 
God one-tenth of all He gave to me. My faith had a 
few testing seasons, but I never lacked, and I was 
never out of cash money. The infinitely tender deal- 
ings of God for the year, in spiritual and physical 
matters, would fill a book. Here is only one. I had 
more urgent need for money coming due in November. 
I knew I had no way to get the money but by prayer, 



Il8 SOUI. FOOD. 

SO all through September and October I prayed much 
for the funds, and I observed several days of fasting. 
I was kept in perfect peace, yet intense looking to God. 
During the last week in October, a poor, sanctified widow 
fifteen hundred miles from me, and who had never 
seen me, wrote to me that she was very powerfully im- 
pressed of the Spirit to spend a whole day in prayer 
for my temporal supplies, and that God spoke into her 
heart that He would supply my needs. I needed one 
hundred dollars by November loth, and another hun- 
dred in December, but my little prayer only took in the 
first hundred. On the 6th of November, after sup- ^ 
per, just before beginning the weekly holiness meeting 
in my house, I was walking in the library, talking with 
the L/Ord of my deep need ; suddenly the Holy Ghost 
opened up to my mind a fresh and strong view of the 
Fatherly provision of God for me. My whole soul 
was melted into love and peace ; tears of joy flowed 
down my face ; there was something just like a voice 
talking in my heart, which said, '' Money is nothing to 
Me ; it is only My wrapping-paper, and is inexhaust- 
ible ; just give Me continually your warmest love and 
perfect obedience, and I will attend to your finances." 
With these words in my mind, I felt that my 
prayer was answ^ered. In four more days the money 
would be needed, and I did not have my mind on any- 
body on earth to supply it. On the 9th I received a 
letter from a sanctified business man, several thousand 



MARVEI.OUS ANSWER TO PRAYER. IIQ 

miles away, saying that he ''felt a strong impulse to 
send me a check for over two hundred dollars." The 
receipt of the check did not surprise me at all, for my 
faith was expecting God to do something ; but I walked 
into the forest and sat down on a log, and just gazed 
for an hour at the great and living God, and adored 
His matchless love and the reality of His personal 
presence. I did not know which to admire most, the 
movement of the Holy Ghost on the widow to pray, or 
on the dear brother to send the money. And then to 
see the accuracy of the Lord's time-table, that the sup- 
ply should reach me just on time to a day. I at once 
took out one-tenth for the Lord. 

Now I have written this only for God's glory, to 
encourage the child of God to have perfect faith in 
Him, and I earnestly recommend the rigid principles of 
giving the tenth to God of all that we receive. 

The lyord wants us to pray very particularly and 
persistently for all things which are covered by His 
promises, and it is a good way to prove our earnestness 
by fasting, especially in emergencies. God is now 
waiting to work thousands of wonders for His children, 
in saving, or healing, or filling, or providing, if they 
will deeply and perseveringly plead His promises 
through the merit of Jesus. 



I20 SOUIv FOOD. 

XXVII. 

THE DIVINE PULL. 

OFTENTIMES, when I have been traveling on the 
cars, going at the rate of thirty or forty miles 
per hour, I have felt the train give a sudden pull, be- 
cause the engineer had turned on more steam to in- 
crease the speed to fifty miles per hour. To one who 
travels a good deal, and has a keen sense of motion, 
every movement of the train can be readily detected. 
I can detect when the train turns in the least to the 
right or left, or the slightest pressure of the air-brake 
on the w^heels, or the least increase of speed. 

This sensitiveness to the motion of a train should 
be realized in the spiritual life. If we keep in a very 
humble and crucified state of mind, and in unbroken 
fellowship with the Holy Spirit, the interior sensibili- 
ties of the soul will be just as keen as those of the 
body. We can detect the least slackening of speed, or 
the least veering to the right or left ; and, blessed be 
God, we can be conscious when the heavenly Engineer 
turns on more spiritual pressure. 

It will often happen in secret prayer, when all the 
faculties of the soul are open to the sway of the 
Spirit, that we can feel a Divine pull upon our hearts, 
a sudden yearning of the soul after God stronger than 
hitherto ; a deep, sweet passion for Christ takes hold 
upon the fountains of desire ; a longing, an intense 



THE DIVINE PULI.. 121 

craving to be just like Jesus pervades the whole 
mind. 

At such moments we feel magnetized ; we are con- 
scious that an infinite load-stone is drawing our desires, 
affections, choices, and imaginations up into the bright- 
ness and sweetness of God. 

Such moments are worth more than we can con- 
jecture. We should make everything of them. When 
the Spirit gives us such gentle pulls to Himself, we 
should open the throttle-valve of the heart to its utter- 
most ; let the tears flow ; let hours, if need be, glide away 
unheeded, even if it is midnight ; let the Divine nature 
open its great, sweet splendors to our mind ; let us push 
our way at such times into the very bosom of Jesus ; 
let us take the hint of His drawing, and make deep and 
passionate love with Him. At such times, let us spread 
before Him all our unselfish longings for the salvation 
of souls, special petitions for relatives and friends and 
foes, for great Revivals, for mission-fields. While these 
sweet seraphic w^inds blow down upon us, let us stretch 
every sail, and oil the bottom of our ships, and make 
all the speed possible. Many a season of prayer is 
without fruit because the ** Amen'' is said just about 
the time the blessed Spirit is getting His fingers on the 
heart-strings for a heavenly pull. 

In the past few months, more than ever in m^^past 
life, I am learning to detect the gentle movements of 
the Holy Spirit in my soul in prayer. Sometimes I 



122 SOUIv FOOD. 

begin praying with a weary, dull feeling ; my thoughts 
seem dry, my affections seem becalmed, and this dr}^- 
ness lingers for ten or twenty minutes, but by fixing 
my thoughts on God and asking Him to breathe in me 
the very prayer which will most please the Father, and 
then by patiently waiting and pleading the infinite 
merit of my elder Brother, by and by the brightness 
begins to come ; the heart is melted ; tears of love and 
thanksgiving flow ; an inexpressible sweetness settles 
into all my being. Then all difiiculties, all sorrows, 
all hardships, all burdens, all loneliness, all anxiety of 
every sort and degree, sink away below the horizon, 
and I find myself in a vast prairie of blooming flowers, 
and magnificent vistas, and clear skies, and singing 
birds, and gently flowing streams, and my whole being 
seems dissolved into great drops of love. 

I find it pays immensely to watch the movements 
of the Spirit, and to abandon all the activities of my 
mind in co-operation with His work. Oh, that we may 
get so intimate with the Holy Spirit as to take His 
slightest hint, and feel His gentlest pull, and always 
yield a loving response to His wishes ! What an infi- 
nite compliment that our heavenly Father should be 
willing to indicate His thoughts and His desires toward 
us through the emotions of His Spirit ! lyct us appre- 
ciate the least token we have from God. If we re- 
spond to His gentle pulls in prayer, it will enable us 
to more readily detect any warning or premonition 



CLIMAX OF SORROW. 1 23 

which He may give us of approaching danger or of the 
blessedness of some golden opportunity. 



XXVIII. 

CLIMAX OF SORROW. 

IN one of Miss Havergal's letters, she calls attention 
to the striking climax in Exodus 3: 7, in which 
God speaks of the notice He takes of all His people's 
troubles; ** seen their affliction/' ** heard their cry," 
and ' * knows their sorrows. ' ' There are some calami- 
ties that are visible, such as slavery, scourging, fire, 
death, disease, poverty, old age, loneliness, malforma- 
tion of body, etc. Such afflictions appear to the eye, 
and from the tender-hearted call forth sympathetic tears 
and efforts of relief. Such afflictions are easily recog- 
nized and comprehended, and the great mass of man- 
kind never seem to apprehend any affliction beyond 
those of visible troubles. 

Then there is a second degree of trouble, which 
exists mainly in the soul or mind, in the sensibilities, 
the afFectional nature, the thoughts and memory. 
Even when there are no outward marks of calamity on 
person or property visible to the eye, there may still be 
trouble that shakes and shatters the whole mental 
frame, causing piercing cries and burning tears. That 
muffled moan, that soft sob, that pitiful wail, those hot 
tears, have histories behind them ; like the round sea 



124 SOUIv FOOD. 

waves that break their hearts in moans on the shore, 
they have come from some distant storm far away on 
the sea of Hfe. But still such sorrows can be told ; 
they can be described in language and comprehended 
by the understanding. They belong to that region of 
our nature which can be expressed. 

Then there is a third degree of sorrow which lies 
away down in the immortal spirit, taking hold of the 
very fountains and springs of our being, so overpower- 
ing all the moral and mental and nerv^ous powers as to 
be beyond all expression, either to the eye or in words. 
These sorrows are like those great vibrations at the bot- 
tom of the ocean — never reported to eye or ear ; like 
the million- fold heat which melts the center of the 
globe, unknown to those who walk above it. Now, 
the infinitely loving Father sees all the aflBliction which 
can become visible, hears all the cries that can express 
woe or trouble, and then, in the great depths of sorrow 
unseeable and unutterable, His tender, all-knowing 
heart takes it all in. In the nature of things, the love 
and sympathy of the best saints on earth go onl}^ a 
short ways ; but the infinite heart of Jesus travels on 
and out and down to take in every form of pain 
and sorrow. His precious, healing blood can spread 
its cleansing and soothing power through body, soul, 
and spirit, to the last fibre of our being. For every 
unspeakable sorrow in human experience, there is an 
unspeakable fullness of comfort, peace, and joy in the 



OUR NEKD OF HUMII.ITY. 1 25 

blessed Holy Spirit; for when God said, "I know 
their sorrows," it w^as not merely to tell His omnis- 
cience, but to affirm that His omniscience was all en- 
gaged to deliver and save, and heal the sorrow. 



XXIX. 

OUR NEED OF HUMILITY. 

NO grace is more befitting to us as human beings 
than that of perfect humilit}^ As a race, we are 
the weakest, and poorest, and blindest of any order of 
intelligences, we know of. Our bodies are made out of 
dust, our breath is in our nostrils, and our spiritual and 
mental nature is depraved. We have the weakness of 
the earth, the infirmities of the animals, and the de- 
pravity of the demons. We come in the world the 
most helpless of all creatures. Surely, if there is any 
race of beings in the universe that have any right to 
pride and vanity, we are not that race, and it is only a 
species of insanity that begets in us any degree of 
pride. In order to see my need of boundless humility, 
let me look at m}^ nothingness. All creatures around 
me excel me in some one or more particulars. There is 
hardly an animal, or bird, or insect, that cannot in 
some particular excel me, either in speed of motion, 
or beauty of song, or hardiness, or docility, or some 
trait, which makes me as a creature feel my inferiority. 
And when I look on the members of my race, I can 



126 SOUI. FOOD. 

not find one who does not excel me in some gift, or tal- 
ent, or grace, or skill, or advantage, or combination of 
gifts. The worst of my fellows have in them some 
natural traits — it may be a softness in the eye, or a 
sweetness in the voice, or a force of will, or a grace of 
motion, or a teachableness of mind, or relative disposi- 
tion to goodness — which surpass me ; or they have 
sinned against less light, under worse temptations, and 
have had less advantages than ever I had. 

I have often read this in books, but the time has 
come when I feel it to be true. When the Holy Spirit 
shows us our nothingness, it is so easy for us to find 
thousands about us who are superior to ourselves, and 
under His illumination we can find something to love 
and to admire in all' our fellow-creatures. 

Another reason why I should be perfectly humble, 
is because I never lived a day that I have not been a 
tax to somebody. From the day I was born some of 
my fellow-beings have had to nurse me, or to cook, or 
to wash for me, or to wait on me ; and as the years 
have gone by, how many untold millions of services 
have been rendered to a poor worm like me by thou- 
sands and thousands of my fellow-beings ! In all these 
years, how many attentions of kindness have I received, 
how many gifts of love, how many kind words, how 
many earnest prayers have ascended for me, how 
many services to the needs of my bod)^ my mind, 
my spirit, my temporal and intellectual and religious 



OUR NEED OF HUMILITY. 1 27 

matters ! And how many times have I wounded my 
friends, and grieved those who loved me most, and dis- 
appointed the hopes of many ! Perhaps I have never 
Hved a day that I have not caused somebody more or 
less pain, or anxiety, or trouble. My manners have 
been unpleasant, m}^ voice harsh, my w^ords unwise, 
my acts open to criticism, my best deeds have had flaws 
in them, or attended by some infirmity which rendered 
them less potent than they should have been. In the 
midst of such facts, for me to have one atom of pride, 
or self-esteem, or resentment, or coolness, or hard feel- 
ing toward an}^ of my fellows, would be a gross bar- 
barism. And then, when I think of the grief I have 
been to my Guardian Angel, and the loved ones in 
heaven who perhaps look down upon me all the time ; 
and over and above all this, when I think of the grief 
I have caused my blessed Jesus, and heavenl}^ Father, 
and the Holy Spirit, surely nothing so benefits me as 
to sink always in my own nothingness. All pride of 
au}^ form or degree springs from self-esteem and over- 
estimate of ourselves. Could we always remember 
our true nothingness and inferiority, we should 
never be angry at an}^ creature, we should never say 
that we have been injured or wronged by anybody, we 
should never be unkind or severe or impatient with the 
faults of others, we should never feel hurt at the con- 
duct of another towards us. 

If we sink constantly into our nothingness and the 



128 SOUIv FOOD. 

perfect will of God, it is impOvSsible for anybody or an}^- 
tliing on earth to do us a real damage. Stricth^ speak- 
ing, no one in the universe can do us any harm but 
ourselves. What may seem to be a mean treatment 
that any human being can give us, if accepted in ab- 
solute self-abnegation, and taken as from the loving 
hand of God, will inevitably work for our good. 
Our nothingness is the fortress in which we should 
hide ; around that fort our heavenly Father places His 
omnipotence as a wall, and no event or any act of others 
can penetrate that wall and reach us, without passing 
through the Divine will. Perfect humility is the door- 
way into the deepest peace, the greatest deadness to 
self and to the world ; it is the condition of our sweet- 
est union with Divine nature. Whenever anything oc- 
curs that is painful, or disagreeable, or seemingly in- 
jurious, or damaging to our souls or bodies or property, 
let us at once consider our nothingness and utter de- 
merit, and, from that standpoint, grace will flow into 
us, and give us strength to endure all things with a 
meekness and a love which will crown the soul with 
victory. True humility is not a vSpasmodic virtue which 
can be received as a mere blessing once for all, but we 
must study to be humble, make it a habit of the mind, 
and determine by the aid of Divine grace to always put 
ourselves at the bottom. It is an experience which we 
are to grow in. Wesley wrote to Asbur}^ that he 
studied to be little and lowly. No wonder God could 



i 



THK FORMS OF DIVINK LIFK. 1 29 

SO mightily use him ; while others are studying to be 
great and pushing their own interests, let us really de- 
sire to be like Jesus, keep always in our thoughts how 
to renounce ourselves, and sacrifice ourselves tor God 
and the welfare of others. The more thoroughly we 
humble ourselves, the more truly God is exalted, for 
Christ is glorified in us just in proportion as we do not 
seek our own. When self is always renounced, then 
the joy of God becomes a continual experience in the 
heart. 



XXX. . 

THE FORMS OF DIVINE WFE. 

JUST as all the character and life of the Godhead 
was formed and expressed in the person and life of 
our blessed Jesus, so, in a similar way, it is God's de- 
sign that the fullness of the Christ-life* shall be re- 
formed and expressed in us by the power of the in- 
dwelling and infilling of the Holy Spirit. That infi- 
nite life of spotless, lowly, gentle love is seeking ves- 
sels in which to shape and spread itself abroad in the 
world, and the Holy Spirit is the person who imparts 
and unfolds this Divine life in us. 

In order that this life may perfectly fill us, every 
obstruction to its inflow in heart and mind and habit 
must be purged away ; and then the Spirit, in taking 
possession of us, will naturally take the form of our pe- 

9 



130 SOUI. FOOD. 

culiar individuality and innocent characteristics. The 
Christ-life is a unit, but the living forms in which it 
may be expressed are as manifold as are the living ves- 
sels that will receive it. As the great ocean pouring 
itself into the various inlets along the shore will take 
the form and depth and other peculiarities of those in- 
lets, so the infinite sea of Divine life, in being poured 
into His creatures, will assume the various forms of 
those creatures, and blend itself with all their God- 
given faculties and temperaments. 

The blood in our heart takes the shape of the heart, 
but as it is thrown out through all the body, it shapes 
itself to the arteries and veins down to the least mole- 
cule of each organ. Thus Christ is the infinite heart 
of Hfe, and by the Holy Ghost He pulsates that life 
out into all the members of His mystical body — into 
youth and old age, male and female, nervous and 
phlegmatic temperaments — shaping itself according to 
each one's make and endowment. In like manner this 
Holy Ghost life can flow through all the natural affec- 
tions and adapt itself to their form and manifestation. 
It is God's revealed will that all the natural affec- 
tions — connubial, parental, filial, fraternal — shall exist 
in spotless purity, and be the appropriate channels for 
showing forth the very life of Jesus that circulated in 
heaven. Hence the need of the uttermost purification 
of every part of our being, that nothing may hinder 
the infinite person of Christ from filling our spirit. 



THE FORMS OF DIVINK LIFE. I31 

mind, and body . Though the life takes our individ- 
ual human form, yet the life is Divine, and its power in 
and through us is superhuman. 

'* We have this treasure in earthen vessels," and 
the reason why this precious life is put into our earthen 
vessels is because it may more clearly be seen ' ' that 
the excellency is of God," and not of us. Only think 
of the great honor given to us, that we can give individ- 
ual form and expression to the very life of the Lamb of 
God. The air I breathe takes the fashion of my lungs 
and the tones of my voice w^hich no other in the human 
race will duplicate. So our loving Lord wants each of 
us to breathe in His life and Spirit, and give some form 
or voice or expression for Him which none but us can 
give. Hence, instead of fretting over our peculiar 
make-up, or criticising that of others, let us remember 
that God will not undo the mechanism or form of our 
individualism, but His plan is to purge away all sin 
and self, and have each of our diverse individualities ut- 
terly filled with His life and Spirit. Not to chafe or 
wrestle with my formation, but to perfectly and always 
3'ield it to the possCvSsion of the Holy Spirit, is the w^ay 
to victory and blessing. 



132 SOUI. FOOD. 

XXXI. 

THE SPIRIT OF CRUCIFIXION. 

THE act of crucifixion is one thing, but the Spirit 
in which the crucifixion is to be borne is another. 
In some respects, the act may be brief and finished ; 
but the inward heart disposition that should pervade 
crucifixion is a continuous principle, extending through 
life, ever-widening its range over a multiplicity of ap- 
plications, and growing in intensity to the end. This 
divinely beautiful spirit of self-immolation cannot be 
defined. It can only be faintly described. It is a heart- 
quality, a soul-essence, too fluid to be held in by words. 
If we could get a vision of the soul of Jesus, from the 
Last Supper to His death on the cross, and have a 
clear, spiritual discernment of all the thoughts and feel- 
ings and affections and sympathies, and every quality 
of disposition that was in His nature during those long 
hours, in such a spiritual vision we would vSee the full- 
sized mind appropriate to crucifixion. 

Thousands have had, in greater or less degrees, a 
vSpiritual revelation into this history of the soul of 
Jesus. Such a vision can only be given by the Holy 
Ghost, for it is infinitely beyond the natural reason and 
imagination. 

In the same proportion that we discern the inward 
spirit Christ had during those hours, in that proportion 
can we drink of that spirit, until we can suffer, bleed, 



THE SPIRIT OF CRUCIFIXION. 1 33 

and die in our measure, with the very same dispositions 
He had. 

It is a silent spirit. It suffers without advertising 
the depth of its suffering. A dog or a pig will howl 
and squeal at the least pain or fright, but the lamb 
quivers and suffers in silence. It can weep until the 
fountains of tears are exhausted, and then it goes on 
weeping interior tears in the heart. Because the out- 
w^ard tears have ceased, its cruel critics think it has no 
pain, but God can see those hot, invisible tears of the 
spirit, and they fall upon His cheek and move His in- 
finite compassion. It can be snubbed, scolded, criti- 
cised, misunderstood, misreprCvSented, and checked and 
hindered in a thousand ways without a groan, or a 
kick, or a trace of threatening or impudence. 

It is sworn to eternal submissiveness. Out of a 
passion of Divine love, it has calmly signed the death- 
warrant of self. It can have a thousand little gifts 
and treasures, and harmless earthly pleasures, and 
pleasant hopes, and friendly ties snatched out of its 
hand, without clutching the fingers to hold on to them. 
It gently and sweetly lets everything go. It can obey 
God and be rushing at full speed on lines of service 
and duty for Him, and then, at the touch of God's 
providential air-brake, it can be brought to an instan- 
taneous standstill, without shaking the train to pieces 
by a single jar or the least jostling of the will from its 
perfect repose in Jesus. 



134 SOUL FOOD. 

It is a flexible spirit, with no plan of its own. It 
can be turned by the finger of God in any direction 
without ^ moment's warning. It can walk into a dun- 
geon or a throne, into a hut or a palace, with equal ease 
and freedom. It has lost its own will in union with 
God, and partakes of the movements of the Divine 
mind, as a floating cloud partakes of the movements 
of the air which encircles it. It can wear old, thread- 
bare clothes, and live on plain food, with a thank- 
ful and sweet disposition, without even a thought of 
envy, or coveting the nice things of others. It looks 
with a quiet, secret, joyful contempt on all the honors 
and pleasures, and learning and culture, and the hon- 
orable splendors of earth. It inwardl}^ despises what 
other people are longing to get hold of. This is be- 
cause it sees into heaven, and is so fascinated with the 
magnitude of coming glories that even the pretty and 
honorable things of this world look ugly to it. 

It embraces suffering as its natural food. The rug- 
ged cross, which frightens so many Christians, is em- 
braced by this spirit with a sweet, subtle joy, because 
it knows that all suffering will enlarge and sweeten its 
love. It is love on fire, and seeks to pour itself out in 
avenues of self-abnegation. What other Christians 
shun as a hardship, it gladly accepts as an opportunity 
of sweeter union with God. It longs for nothing but 
more love. It likes to die over and over again for the 
sake of widening its ocean of love. It loves its ene- 



THK SPIRIT OF CRUCIFIXION. 1 35 

mies with a sweet, gentle, yearning affection, utterly 
be5^ond what they would be willing to believe. It can 
be bruised and trampled on, and turn with a quivering, 
speechless lip, and a tear-dimmed eye, and kiss and 
pray for the foot that, under the pretense of religious 
duty, is trampling it in the dust. This is no fancy 
sketch ; I mean what I say. This spirit, like St. Paul, 
longs for the coming of Jesus, and yearns to be clothed 
upon with glorification. It would gladly never have 
any ph3^sical pleasure but for the legitimate needs and 
recreations of the body. In the language of the wase 
man, *'It eats for strength, and not for the mere 
pleasure of appetite." 

This spirit will not receive human honor into it- 
-self. If it is praised or honored by its fellows, instead 
of eating it as a sweet morsel, it offers it up instantly 
to the Lord, as the angel did with the good dinner 
which was presented to him by Manoah. Its highest 
delight is in sinking into God and being little. It loves 
to humble itself, both before God and man. It shuns 
debate and strife, and theological argument. 

It is modest and retiring, and loves to get out of 
God's way, and see Him work. It would rather see 
the ark capsize, and the cherubim all broken, than to 
put forth its finger to meddle with God's authority. 
It does make others wear its sackcloth. It would 
rather take other people's sufferings on itself than to 
take their joys. It has a deep, interior vision of the 



136 SOUI. FOOD. 

soul of Jesus, and is smitten with the Divine beauty 
of Christ's inner heart-life, and loves to repeat over 
again the feeling which Christ had. It has glimpses 
of the face of Jesus when He was dying. It sees the 
purple tint in His features as His head dropped upon 
His breast, and sees a glory in it which eclipses the 
splendor of the tall white angels. 

When the soul enters sanctification, it is just the 
beginning of this spirit, which is to spread, intensify, 
and brighten until crucifixion becomes an all-consuming 
passion, a sweetly sorrowful, sadly beautiful flame of 
self-abnegation, which takes hold of all sorts of woes, 
and troubles, and mortifications, and pains, and pover- 
ties, and hardships, as a very hot fire takes hold on wet 
logs and makes out of them fresh fuel for more self- 
sacrificing love. 

This is the spirit that opens the gate of heaven 
without touching it. This is the spirit that wears out 
the patience of persecutors, that softens the heart of 
stone, that in the long run converts enemies into friends, 
that touches the heart of sinners, that wins its w^ay 
through a thousand obstacles^ that outwits the genius 
of the devil, and that makes the soul that has it as 
precious to God as the apple of His eye. 



the; tkndkr I.AMB. 13.7 

XXXII. 

THE TENDER LAMB. 

THERE is a startling suggestion as to the revelation 
of our Lord's character in the use of the word 
lamb, in the book of Revelation. The word '' lamb," 
as used in Revelation, is a word used nowhere else in 
the Bible. The word lamb, as used in all other places 
in the New Testament, is in the Greek — amnos/ but 
in every instance when the word lamb is used in Rev- 
elation, the Greek is arnion. This little word arnion 
means a little, tender lamb. 

What a stream of Christly character flows in upon 
our vision through the word arnion. From it let us 
make the following suggestions : 

God reveals Himself to us in the names which He 
assumes, and there is a progressive unfolding of the 
different phases of the character and attributes of God, 
from Genesis to Revelation. The first name He takes 
in the Bible is God, in the original Elohim, which sig- 
nifies the uncreated One — the Creator. The next name 
He takes is Lord, of which the original is Jehovah, 
which signifies the living One, One who has ever lived 
and will live forever. It also signifies the life-giver. 
Whenever you find the word Lord in the Old Testa- 
ment printed in small capitals, that is to indicate that 
the original word is Jehovah. The next name found 
in the Bible is the word Lord, vSpelled with a capital 



138 SOUL FOOD. 

' ' L, " and the rest of the words in small letters, of 
which the original word is adoni. This word adoni 
signifies supporter, upholder, strengthener. Thus we 
have, in these three words, the Trinity. The Father 
is the uncreated, eternal Fountain ; the Son, the eternal 
lyife-giver ; and the Holy Spirit, the eternal Supporter, 
Comforter. As we pass on .down through the holy 
volume, we come to other names and titles of God too 
numerous to expound in this place. He is called our 
Shepherd. (Ps. 23.) When we come to the New 
Testament, we find all the names and titles of God in 
the Old Testament are revealed in brighter and sweeter 
forms. Elohim is revealed as Father. Jehovah is re- 
vealed as Jesus and the Christ and the lamb of God. 
Adoni is revealed as the Comforter and Sanctifier and 
Illuminator. But all these names and titles of God 
glow with intenser meaning, and widen and deepen in 
their significance in the manifold ways in which they 
are used throughout the Gospels and the Epistles. 

The book of Revelation w^as written about a hundred 
years after the birth of Jesus, and by that Disciple 
whom Jesus loved, who was very aged, and his whole 
being flooded and matured with Christ-likeness, and 
eminently fitted to be the translucent vase in which 
God could pour the ultimate and ineffable splendors of 
His character and word. And so I take it that this 
word arnion — that is, ** tender lamb" — gives us the 
ultimate and most divinely-exquisite insight into the 



THE TENDER IvAMB. 1 39 

eternal loveliness of Jesus possible for us to receive in 
this state of being. As we move down the stream of 
that revelation which the infinite and eternal One has 
made of Himself, we find many tributaries of added 
truth and light pouring into the central river, and these 
confluent streams of names and titles and attributes 
and characteristics bear us on a tide of ever-increasing 
light and truth and glory, until we are borne out into 
the boundless, silvery sea of the Godhead, whose 
names and character are '^God is light," *'Godis 
love," '* God is a tender Lamb." 

Such a revelation of God is exactly opposite to 
what any man-made theories would represent Him. 

II. From this word arnion we gather the suggestion 
of the progressive unfolding of the perceptions of the 
living God in our own minds and experiences. The 
average sinner, though Uving in nominal Christian 
lands, with Bibles and Churches, has a very crude and 
almost utterly unscriptural idea of God, very little 
superior to the idea which a Hottentot has of the Al- 
mighty. 

The very thought of God is that He seldom enter- 
tains, and then it is mostly an annoyance and a pest to 
Him. When a sinner becomes serious, and chinks of 
repentance and a new life, his conception of God is not 
that Scriptural idea of an infinite, loving, personal 
Creator, who loves him, and who loves to pardon and 
wash his soul, but it is a sort of confused and a cold 



140 SOUIv FOOD. 

view of God, which is made up of power, and distance, 
and severity, and harshness, with a touch of majesty 
and some other attributes. If he does not hear warm 
and evangelical preaching, he is very apt to drift to- 
ward the old Calvinistic conception of God, which, 
though it very properly recognizes in God His eternity, 
and immutability, and omniscience, and justice, and 
other blessed majesties which belong to Him, yet it 
throws all the conceptions of God into the frosty dome 
of a cold winter night, which does not melt the heart 
with real pardon and peace. 

If this awakened sinner is led a step farther, and 
gets the conception of God as merciful and compas- 
sionate, he then begins to form more angelical views of 
the Lord. If his desire for salvation increases, and he 
has some one to teach him, or can get hold of Bible 
truth by some other means, he will get a perception of 
Jesus as his substitute, bearing his death penalty, and 
willing to pardon him through simple faith. 

When he believes and receives pardon that lets in a 
flood of new light in his mind respecting God and sal- 
vation, he then begins to apprehend God as a Father 
and Jesus as a personal Savior. 

But there are yet vast regions of Bible truth con- 
cerning God which seem to him a puzzling twilight. 
His perceptions of the Trinity, their distinct personal- 
ities and attributes, hang like an undiscernlble haze in 
his mind, If this converted man aims to live a full 



THE TENDER I.AMB. 14I 

Bible life, he will will soon find a deep need of inward 
purity of nature. If he is led through the appropriate 
steps to that experience, and has a clear apprehension 
of Jesus as his omnipotent cleanser, and will enter that 
state, very soon after this act of pure faith there will 
come to his understanding another sun-burst of glo- 
rious perceptions respecting God. There will spring up 
in his vision an intuitive vision of the Godhead as 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He will perceive these 
ineffable personalities with a clearness and joy of which 
he had no previous idea. Then the different names 
and titles of God in the Bible will be luminous and 
precious to him. 

It is likely that this man will be led through a 
series of trials, sore temptations, heavy crosses, misun- 
derstandings of others, manifold losses, and intricate 
manipulations of Divine Providence, which will serv^e 
as a furnace, with its white heat, to thoroughly anneal 
all the previous operations of grace in his soul. 

In this annealing process he will discover many 
things in his constitution or peculiar makeup which 
need grinding away, or mellowing and softening and 
sweetening, to make him perfectly homogeneous with 
the characteristics of God. When the tribulation and 
the furnace have done their work on him, he will have a 
celestialized vision, a far-penetrating perception, into 
the fine and effable traits of God. He will discern 
things in each of the three Divine persons, glimpses of 



142 SOUI. FOOD. 

their several majesties; he will feel an undefinable 
love for each of them which he cannot put into words. 
He has now reached that country in which the visions 
of God which were given to Moses, Daniel, and John 
become familiar to His daily thoughts. 

Sometimes persons in this state of sonl will have 
sudden flashes of Divine light in their inner spirit, in 
which they will see a long, interminable vista into the 
Divine nature. All saints who are favored with these 
Divine flashes bear uniform testimony that it seems to 
them as if an avenue of glory was opened to them in a 
stream of beautiful, soft light, increasing with ever- 
dazzling whiteness in the distance, for hundreds and 
thousands of miles away, brighter and brighter, until 
it is lost in an undistinguished blaze of blinding light. ' 

This vision of light, for which there are no words, 
corresponds to the unfolding of the Lord Jesus to His 
true follower, which is an ever-increasing climax of 
purity, tenderness, and love, rising in ever-increasing 
degrees of simplicity and lowliness, until, instead of 
being the great and overwhelming Elohim which broke 
the morn of creation, it is the unutterable love and 
tenderness of a little lamb. Oh, what a journey the 
mind has traveled across that vast stretch of spiritual 
territory, where his perceptions of God were wild, con- 
fused, and semi-heathen, to that state of complete 
transformation, where the three persons of the Godhead 
have become a constant, sweet vision to his under- 



THK TENDER I.AMB. I43 

standing, and in whose infinite love he reposes, with all 
his faculties outstretched in longing desire and gentle 
confidence, like the snowy-plumed sea-birds that float 
on the undulations of a glittering sea ! 

Our perceptions of Jesus grow just in proportion 
as we become united to Him in our inner being, and as 
we become like Him in our affections and will. And 
on the other hand, the clearer and deeper our vision 
into His personality and character, the more deeply we 
drink of His precious nature, and become like Him. 
So that a brighter vision ever leads us to a sweeter ex- 
perience of His love, and then a stronger love is ever 
widening and clarifying our vision. Thus it is like 
standing between two mirrors, which reflect the same 
image back and forth ten thousand times — the vision 
ever increasing the love, and the love ever sharpening 
the vision. 

THE END. 



Revival Hand=Bills- 



STARTLING, 

CONVICTING, 

AWAKENING. 



. . NEABLY . . 
TWO MILLIONS 
. . ISSUED. . . 



WINNING, 
ATTRACTIVE, 
INVITING. 



They are Erangelical, and appropriate wherever there is a 
Reyival Meeting. 



I>ESCIlIPTION. 



No. I. The diagram of " This lyife and the I^ife to Come," showing at 
a glance the startling truths revealed in our Savior's parable of the ' ' rich 
man and I^azarus." 

No. 2. "The Two Railroads into Kternity,"one leading into heaven, 
the other — lyost Soul's Railroad — to eternal doom. 

No. 3. This has "The River of Death," with its sources and tributary 
branches, and its fierce flow over the Falls of Eternal Despair. 

No. 4. " Five Dollars Given Away ; or, The Sinner's Excuses Exposed." 
This exposes twenty-nine of the most successful excuses with which Sa- 
tan deceives souls. 

No. 5. The "Two Masters," the famous view of Jesus and Satan on 
the Mount of Temptation. 



COMMENDATIONS. 



Satisfied. — I shall never print any more Revival Hand-bills so long 
as I can get yours. — Pastor J. H. Tanner, Marshall, Mich. 

The Hand-bills Helped. — Pastor W. Powell wrote from Pratt Mines, 
Ala.: "Just closed a wonderful Revival; 156 conversions. Think your 
Hand-bills helped it very much." 

L.ed to Jesus. — The tracts you sent me as a donation were instru- 
mental in a number of happy conversions. — A. B. Wright, Sun bright, Tenn. 

They Bring People to Church. — These Bills have been wonderful 
reminders. They have brought people to church who were never seen 
there heiore.— Pastor F. K. Baker, lone, Cal. 



HOW THEY HEI.P. 

1. They gain attention. 

2. They help introduce the subject of religion. 

3. They bring the subject of salvation to many who do not go to church. 



PRICE. 



$1 25 [ 
2 60 



Post-paid. 



f500, 

|l,000, 

Remit b^^ express order, P. O. money-order, or registered letter. 

If you wish name and location, inclose 50 cents extra, and we will send 
you a rubber stamp and a pad. 

Samples, 10 cents, or for the addresses of earnest, energetic, pious lay 
workers, to whom we will send sample of The Revivalist. Address 

M. W. Knapp, Revivalist Office, Cincinnati, O. 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 » 



